At this point, it's safe to assume we've all been watching a youtube video or reading a yahoo news article when we see it: an outrageous, vulgar, offensive comment from someone with all caps writing and poor grammar that thoroughly convince you that humanity is, in fact, doomed. From racial rednecks to obscene scandalizers, they make us wonder how and why these people couple possibly be the way they are, and what sort of sick, sociopathic pleasure could they possibly be getting from enraging hundreds of posters.
I've been asking myself this question for a long time, and besides the protection internet anonymity offers and a sad, pathetic existence, I haven't been able to consciously put together why these "trolls" exist.
The other day, I was watching a video and noticed the top comments were both like this: "Guys, don't even respond to his comments. He thrives off of our anger, don't give him the satisfaction!"
I scrolled down enough to see his comment look something like this: "HAHA YOU ARE SUCH A FAG BRO BRO YOU SERIOUSLY NEED TO GET A LIFE BRO DON'T YOU KNOW THAT THIS VIDEO IS FOR BABY BITCHES WHO HAVE NO LIFE BRO WTF HAHA YOU ARE SUCH A FAG STOP MAKING FAGGY VIDEOS BRO SERIOUS"
I clicked on his youtube name and it brought me to his profile, which had the following description:
About YUMADBRO?
When im not online trolling, im camping on c.o.D
At first, it almost seems like he's acting as a parody on trolls. But there is no punch line, and with only this video, it seems like he recognizes the ridiculousness of his behavior, but commits to it nonetheless. He still enrages hundreds of people daily. He keeps making new youtube accounts once he gets banned (hopefully this one will still be up for us to analyze). How, as students of digital rhetoric, do we account for people like this? Yes, it is upsetting, but Internet Trolls exist. People would never act this way outside of the internet, so is anonymity and a pension for hate the only reason, or is there something else at work? Is the Internet truly a place to be an open, public sphere with the existence of this type of poster?
I am currently doing a research project on animal abuse and its interesting that you bring this up. One thing I am doing in my research is reading and analyzing the comments to their ad campaign and this hits home. There are so many posts that fit this description of an internet troll. Its amazing what people are willing to say when its quote on quote anonymous.
ReplyDeleteI think the world is filled with a lot of crazy people who probably don't have anything better to do with their lives than troll the internet. That is absolutely crazy that he has the time to go make ridiculous comments on random videos, and the fact that he has the time to keep making more accounts after he is banned. Maybe he has some mental issues going on, and the internet is the only place where people can't make fun of him to his face. I do believe that as students of digital rhetoric that we should just completely ignore these comments, as hard as it may be. It is clear that he is obviously seeking attention, so if he doesn't get any, he will move elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteBrittany, although I agree that his motivation may be simply to seek attention, the fact that he and people like him disrupt digital rhetoric so much is exactly why trolls should be studied. The rhetorical situation of comment sections could be delegated to the sort of public sphere Habbermas promoted, but instead, they are most often derailed and hijacked by trolls before any real deliberation can take place. As we mentioned in class awhile ago, this leads us to question the validity of digital rhetoric, and if the internet ever can reach the communicative heights Habbermas or others once sought for everyday communication. Trolls can't exist in the real world as they do online, but they thrive here. We need to study them because they represent an unfortunately powerful rhetorical anomaly.
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