The Internet troll as the trickster archetype

Drewspeak ^ | May 30, 2007 | Lord Andrew J. Andrews II

[Ben Mugged]

“The troll comes to the door of a new forum and sets down his bag of tricks. If he has a grudge against the people inside discussing and debating their passions with a certain degree of amicability, peacability and decorum, he does not show them. He has the cracked, stoic smile of Robin Goodfellow, a Puck with the simple desire to disrupt peace itself. He loves chaos; his bag is full of golden apples he can lob to set the masses squabbling. He has also many masks, smoke bombs, straw men, cloaks, puppets, matches, ethanol, knives, dust, sand, and magicks of the most arcane sort. He knows what he is about - causing trouble. Why? This is the troll’s darkest mystery - if any one knew his secret, he would die. For all trolls, their motive power is this: without contraries, they cannot progress.”

I composed this in my notebook a while back; it seemed an exciting way to portray the rapidly-shifting identities and nuisance/amusement factors of these all-too familiar faces in all my old Usenet haunts. I do not deny that a certain nostalgia colours this imagery: the truth is, I was once an Internet troll, “back in the day” when I was an angry, atheist teenager on an AOL account.

[Ben Mugged]

Almost poetic.

[Calpernia]

:-)

[Bon mots]

Remember the good old days when trolls would plant tricky little hyperlink bombs like tubgirl and goatse?

[martin_fierro]

Troller is looking for a response...ANY response, and he will chum the waters with complaints, insults, compliments, and inflammatory tidbits hoping that someone...ANYONE, will take the bait. Generally quite harmless - practices a form of catch and release. Nonetheless, he can upset the delicate ecology of a discussion forum. Once a forum becomes aware of his presence, however, all feeding activity ceases and Troller must move on to more promising waters.

[VRWCmember]

Another entry for the list: He frequently encounters massive lightning bolts and ferocious kittens.

[M203M4]

What is tubgirl and goatse?

JUST KIDDING!!