What does it mean to troll? How to behave if someone is trying to troll you

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:54

Trolling is one of the types of virtual communication, in which one of the parties - a troll - is engaged in unconscious escalation of a conflict or begins to deliberately, in an explicit or covert form, belittle and bully another participant in communication, violating the ethics of behavior on the network. Trolling is expressed in the form of offensive, mocking and aggressive behavior. In real life, it is similar to energy vampirism. Used by both anonymous participants and personalized users interested in shocking, publicity and recognition.

Rise and study

The term appeared at the beginning of the 21st century. Back then, no one knew what it meant to troll. People interested in this topic created network organizations and communities to exchange experiences, where they discussed the most effective ways to foment conflicts. Trolling was first mentioned in the academic literature in 1996 by researcher Judith Donat, who gave some curious examples taken from Usenet conferences. Donatemphasized that in the "virtual society" this identification is ambiguous.

Origin of the term

What is the meaning of the word "troll"? This term is not related to the field of scientific discourse, and originated from the slang of users of virtual communities. "Fishing with a lure" - this is the literal translation from the English word "trolling". In general terms, this phenomenon can be characterized as the process of posting provocative messages on communication resources on the network in order to create a conflict situation by violating the ethical rules of Internet interaction. We hope you now understand what it means to troll people. Let's move on.

Troll - this is the designation received by a person involved in trolling. Irina Ksenofontova (a fellow at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) believes that this term has become popular because of its significance in Scandinavian mythology. There, trolls, especially in children's stories, are portrayed as ugly, unpleasant creatures created to create evil and harm. They are depicted very colorfully in the cinema.

Trolling environment

We figured out what it means to troll the Internet. Now let's talk about places where this can be done. These include social networks, conferences, thematic forums, news sites, portals and chats. The design features of these spaces allow the user to create a virtual alter ego, constructed at his discretion. Almost every virtual community hasspecial fields where participants can form their data by entering the main and additional (hobbies and interests) characteristics. This is a great opportunity for organizing provocations by people who know what it means to troll a person. After all, this process is not controlled by anyone, and any participant in the virtual space can generate the desired image.

The nature of the impact on virtual spaces

Provocateur pretends to be an ordinary user who shares the common problems and interests of a community or group. If the participants of the conference are aware of what it means to troll, then they try to identify provocative publications, and if this succeeds, they force the attacker to leave the group. The success of detection will depend on the skill of recognizing the hints that determine the goals of the creator of the posts. Also, a lot depends on the troll himself, or rather, on the level of his professionalism. Skilled provocateurs can troll for a very long time without revealing their true colors.

Trolls cause significant harm to communications: spoil the discussion, spread a destructive idea or harmful advice, destroy the sense of trust of community members to each other. In groups with a high level of falsification in space, which are particularly sensitive to trolling, most questions that are naive in content are rejected and are not considered provocation.

Features

Trolling as a form of social aggression has its own characteristics. The first is the opportunityits existence only in virtual communities. Although in real society there are people who know what it means to troll, and do it with pleasure. The second is the rapid release of an avalanche-like aggression that instantly spreads to almost all users of the virtual community. And the third is the impossibility of the victim of trolling to make visual or physical contact with the initiator of the conflict.

What to do if you are being trolled?

In this case, you have two options. Either completely ignore the troll, or become one yourself and give a fitting rebuff. And to defeat him, you need to be smart, quick-witted and attentive. Develop these qualities in yourself.

The mind is needed to realize that it is not worth transferring the whole process of trolling into reality. This is just the chatter of people who have the opportunity to spend their time squabbling online. If you do not understand this, then it is unlikely that anything will help you. Then there is no point in reading further.

Ingenuity. Do not confuse with the mind. Intelligence is the ability to instantly respond to any changes in the external environment and adapt to them, if necessary. It is also the ability to apply other people's tactics and techniques, actively used by people who are aware of what it means to troll.

Attention and good memory. You need to collect and carefully analyze everything that your opponent says about you. Also watch your phrases. After all, any of them can be used against you. A good memory is needed tomemorize and quote your opponent's stupid statements.

Well, and, of course, a high print speed will not hurt. The higher the typing speed in the chat, the easier it is to troll a person with phrases that he thinks too long. In general, be sure to master the touch typing skill.

Having mastered all the above qualities, you will understand much more deeply what it means to troll people, and you will be able to resist any person who tries to hook you.