They see me trollin'

Our discussion today about cyberbullying and how it's so easy to mess with people from behind a computer made me want to share some fun facts. First, there are people that bully others over the internet for the sole purpose of entertainment. Typically they are referred to as trolls, and exist to cause havoc and mayhem.

my reliable source of urbandictionary defines a troll as:
One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

there are more definitions if you want to get a better idea - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=troll

Sometimes it involves a person creating a fake facebook page and stirring up trouble with people they actually know or just random people, usually with the knowledge that people will argue about just about anything on the internet. Typically these posts create massive arguments that leaves the troll laughing at the mayhem he/she has caused. I mentioned this in class but here's an example - imagine you're a big Heath Ledger fan, and you see or hear someone say: "I can't believe Keith Ledger won an Oscar for The Black Night, I mean Jack Nicholas was a much better Riddler, and he's a golf legend!" -note the incorrect information and misspelling. Any responses correcting the information or becoming upset are considered to have been trolled. Once you have some experience with trolling, it usually becomes easy to detect, in which people will advise you to "do not feed the troll"

Examples:

Ralph Pootawn from SL (disclaimer - naked avatars in mature situations)
http://ralphplsgo.com/index.htm

Tommy B. - a classic example of facebook trolling with a fake account (language)
http://www.facebooktroll.com/

Advice on how to troll Yahoo answers
http://regretfulmorning.com/2009/05/if-youre-going-to-troll-yahoo-answers-do-it-right/

more examples of trolling attempts (language)
http://artoftrolling.memebase.com/

Pic is generally accepted as what trolls look like in the act