Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

I think I'll change the page image to that of trollface with the caption "Problem, Fast Eddie?" Please recognize this as being all in good fun as honestly I've never heard of vocaloid, and the picture is completely byzantine.

Fast Eddie: removed hotlinked http://miezaru.donmai.us/wiki/show?noredirect=1&title=akita_neru http://i29.tinypic.com/2ighq29.jpg with "caption-width:200:Akita Neru, a Moe Moe personification of a troll found on 2ch"

Jisu: Hmm, I do like the idea of having a picture of Neru on here, though. How's this?

2ch is a text board, not an image board. Did you mean 2chan? For reference:

2ch == 2channel == Japanese Text Board
2chan == futaba == Japanese Image Board
4chan == yotsuba == English Image Board

fleb: Hey, Harley Quin hyenaholic: I'm not sure the alphabetize-the-media-sections-on-every-page strategy has meshed well with this particular page, since it's not so much a media trope as fandoms-about-media trope. And I'm guessing deleting the Vocaloid example was accidental collateral damage. (I'll try a change.)

Were Josh Peck Prince: I used to be one of these types on here you know, but then I gave up much later. I'm reformed now.

Dick Richardson - Hey, Eddie, most examples don't really name the actual trolls, and cover a few events caused by trolls (of course, a few aren't named).

Midna: Gonna salvage the original page text here for posteriety reasons.

In Anime Fandom

Cromartie High School had an episode about a gang leader that administrates a web forum and is incredibly polite. After running into a Troll, he restrains himself. However, the troll later bumps into him in person, and is kicked to the ground by the gang leader without either knowing who the other really is.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has Meru Otonashi, who (true to her name) is extremely shy around others, and only communicates through text messages... pretty much all of which consist entirely of outrageous slander of the recipient. And don't even think about taking her phone away, because she has extras.
Probably the most common theory for Kadokawa Shoten's crazy handling of Suzumiya Haruhi is that Kadokawa has begun trolling the fandom due to the belief that Kadokawa knows they can't kill the Cash-Cow Franchise so they might as well fuck with the fans. Either that or they think they're being innovative by announcing Haruhi-Chan's debut on a certain day which instead saw the release of a video of an old meme, refusing to announce the second season, then turning a short story into 5+ episodes of the same plot over and over again.

In Computer Program Fandom

Pictured: A famous modern event on the Japanese 2ch Image Board concerns a troll who attacked Vocaloid threads, saying that everybody who used the program was a misogynistic freak who wanted the illusion of controlling women (never mind that there are both male and female Vocaloids, and that the program is just an artificial singer...) and that the characters were pointless moeblobs. Mocking the moeblob accusation one user commented that the troll would be more likable were they a cute girl as well. A Palette Swap of popular Vocaloid character Miku, minus one of her ponytails, was created and given a song using the Miku program and with lyrics from the thread, and Akita Neru was born. She's now not only the Anthropomorphic Personification of trolls, but one of the most popular fan characters, ascending to Word of Dante and later Ascended Meme with an appearance in the PSP Licensed Game.

In Literature Fandom

Behold the Tara-verse. The original is quite possibly a Stealth Parody (and the reality of Tara is also in question), but it has convinced so many people that in addition to the normal flames, many people have taken to making their own Stealth Parodies, thinking that "Tara" will be too stupid to get the joke. These in turn are also flamed, sometimes by people who don't get the joke, but mostly by people who just don't find it funny. The Harry Potter fandom is devastated by their unfortunate role as the staging ground for this explosion of imitators. A few people have tried to drag it over to its rightful home in the Twilight fandom, with little success. This feeling of rightness likely stems from the fact that ~~Enoby~~ Ebony is a Goth. The fact that My Immortal retains the title of "Worst Fanfiction Ever" despite the fact that the numerous knockoffs are (quite intentionally) infinitely worse is proof that the original always reigns supreme.
- Part of the reason that this didn't carry over very well to Twilight was that in order to write a Stealth Parody, you have to be quite familiar with the source material. There are lots of people who have read all the Harry Potter books but still take a sufficiently relaxed view on them to write the odd Stealth Parody. Or maybe you are a serious fan, angered by all the soppy fanfics that completely misrepresent what Harry Potter is about and fill it full of angstyvampiresex, so choose to make them all look like idiots. Twilight, on the other hand, appeals more specifically to a single demographic, who mostly take it really seriously. There's also the fact that the books are already about angstyvampiresex. Really, where is there left to go?
  - Make Bella a Hard Gay Scary Black Man who rapes puppies for fun and manhandles Edward every night. Blame it on vampirefucker fuck-magic. Change her name to Kareemson. We could go on and on about the Canon Defilement possibilities for Twilight.
  - Would anyone actually believe that this wasn't a parody?

In Live-Action TV Fandom

An interesting case of trolling that has plagued/amused the Battlestar Galactica fandom for some years is Andrew Fullen, who has posted on many boards under the name Languatron (and, briefly, Light_Ship). Fullen began as a fan campaigning for a continuation of the original series, but seemed to lose his mind when it was announced that the series was being remade. He began making claims that the initial mini-series would not even be aired, then that the Sci Fi Channel had lied about the mini-series' ratings, that the first season would not be aired, etc. He also accused fans of the new series, and even some fans of the original series who hated the new series but still thought he was being a jerk, of being “Universal executives” or “stealth marketers” for the new series.
- He became increasingly hostile as he was banned from board after board, and so eventually started his own board with the "register" feature disabled (meaning only he could post). Then he began banning IP addresses that had been viewing his board, fearing that Universal Studios was spying on him. Then he finally just banned anyone from viewing the board (but the number of posts has been steadily increasing ever since). In the most bizarre example of Mr. Fullen's extremism, he has actually taken his ranting off the internet and had three editions of a book he has written vanity published, explaining the conspiracy Universal Studios supposedly has against the original Battlestar Galactica (the latest is available here ).
- It would also appear that he gave his own book a positive review on Amazon (the only one to do so).
One user on the CBS Jericho boards frequently accuses people of lying about their identities and asks for proof [or in one case, "credentials"], demands that they stop hiding behind their keyboards, tells them they have no future, claims that they don't like him because they are racist or prejudiced against veterans...
On the Colbert Report forums, Trolls are referred to as BEARS. Sockpuppet accounts are very common, with the average troll going through several different usernames (usually chosen to reference running jokes from the show, or just openly insult Stephen) before getting tired and leaving. A common but completely unconfirmable fan theory is that some, if not all, of these trolls are Stephen himself, playing games with the fandom.
On The Doctor Who Forum, it was a matter of some debate whether the poster who went by the name of 'Sparacus' was either (a) an exceptionally devoted (if, given how long he kept it up, borderline mad) troll; (b) a genuine but rather pompous and humourless poster who was almost completely lacking in self-awareness with a tendency to take people very over-literally when they responded to his posts; or (c) some combination thereof. With the Forum's closure, Sparacus made the jump to Gallifrey Base, along with the debates. Among his common traits are a healthy disdain for the new series (as he is someone who is quite trapped in the past, he continues to insist that the producers are seriously erring in not making it more like it was in 1973), an obsession with the music of David Bowie, an intense (and at times slightly disturbing) crush on former Coronation Street actor Adam Rickett, and his truly awful fanfiction starring Mary Sue stand-in Ben Chatham, which he continues to insist despite the good sense of everyone he's trying to persuade is far superior to the new series of Doctor Who. His postings have both delighted and infuriated forum members since just before the new series began airing. He even developed a fanbase who set up a new forum, Outpost Sparacus, in his honour.
After Joel Hodgson left his position as host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mike Nelson took over and a massive Internet flame war began over who was the better host—it got so bad that some message boards devoted to the show banned "Joel v. Mike" discussions. Hodgson himself later admitted that, for his own amusement, he would visit an MST board and troll, anonymously ticking off his own fans.

In The News

Many news stories covered by AOL allows people to comment on them. Usually they result in a Flame War between trolls who are making fun of the people in the story and others who take the stories seriously. Sprinkle in some Misplaced Nationalism for a true form of jackassery.
- Also guaranteed that the discussion will derail into a Flame War over religion and/or the President of the U.S.

In Sports Fandom

NFL fan forums. This is probably because professional football is serious business to a lot of people. Somehow the self-hating fans tend to be worse trolls than the jokers from rival teams, although this phenomenon may only exist among Cleveland Browns fans.
- Only Cleveland fans? Hardly. No one beats Philadelphia fans when it comes to trolling their own teams (although they—sorry, we're talking NFL here, so this is the one time I should say we—insult everyone), and even after an 0-16 season, the Lions are still not the biggest joke in the NFL (and now that Matt Millen's gone, Lions fans are out of targets for their ire, anyway). That would be the Cincinnati ~~"Bungles"~~ Jailbirds.

In Tabletop Games Fandom

On the all-inclusive Tabletop Games site RPG.net, one heavily mocked troll post so infamous that it became a site meme was "my hate of d02 know no limit."
- It spawned a game entitled d02, based on coin flips since "d02" literally means a two-sided die, and (owing to people misremembering exactly where the typos were, rendering the post as "my hat of d02") a range of headgear.
Parodied in this video for Dungeons And Dragons 4th Edition, where the trolling is done by an actual Troll. And then a dragon craps on it.
The 4chan poster Jim Profit was well known as the most frustrating troll in the history of the /tg/ board. It got to the point where the site webmaster, "moot", kept a celebration of JP's ban hovering at the top of the board for nearly three times the normal limit of posts, and even after it stopped accepting comments it was still there for a week.
- He showed up here (or at least, a wannabe) for a few weeks before being banned.
  - Jim Profit goes just about everywhere. You can find him on myspace, facebook, youtube, Twitter, cragislist, okcupid, myyearbook, livejournal... (Most of which he's been banned at atleast once) He also made his presence known at some slower chans like 420chan and 7chan. If nothing else, you have to admit he's dedicated to his trolling.
True to its form of rpg parody, the Munchkin card game has an internet troll as one of the monsters in the main set. "It has no special powers, and is really mad about it."
the games workshop's website had a "ask us anyting here" here function. it closed down eventually when all the questions asked turned out to be either about the infamous squat codex (which we're still waiting for!) or the asumed impending release of "Warhammer armies: Fishmen"... this troper actually saw a someone get banned from a games workshop store for pestering the staff about it too much

In Video Games Fandom

Shortly after the birth of Ryan Drummond's (the voice actor for Sonic in the original Sonic Adventure games) son, a Youtube troll named "Diabloking15" posted a series of messages wishing brutal torture and death on the two-month-old baby. This, combined with a series of postings of animal torture videos and praises for Nazis and Hitler, set the Sonic fandom of Youtube aflame, and a series of hilarious swear-filled videos were posted condemning Diabloking15. Needless to say, the troll won.
- In all fairness, posting videos of animal cruelty and stating that you want to torture a baby isn't going to win you too many friends.
  - That was entirely the point.
- After the release of Sonic Unleashed many trolls appeared on Youtube in order to find any Sonic related videos and posted the same comment "fuck sonic the n***hog" (you can imagine what the asterisks are covering). Of course, when compared to the previous example, these comments had basically no effect on Sonic fans. Being it's You Tube, you could have trouble telling the difference between the trolls and the normal commenters.
Masahiro Sakurai has been made out to be a troll via Memetic Mutation, based on his subtle but vicious ruining-the-'fun' of tournament Smash players in Brawl by adding tripping. SAKURAAAAAAIIIII! This is in equals numbers serious and sarcastic.
- The same Memetic Mutation machine made Hideo Kojima into one, too, as the Metal Gear Solid game he was forced to make by the fans seemed deliberately engineered to piss the same fans off.
- Subverted, amongst the Super Robot Wars fandom, the creator Terada is known to troll his fans off, the biggest instance is during the Original Generations release, with how the Huckebein starts to 'attract' Executive Meddling due to looking like Gundam and that it was omitted in the anime adaptation, the OG site removes ALL references about Huckebein, pissing people off. When the game is released, however, the Huckebein machines are still there, fine and dandy. Then, he trolled the fans again by putting a Cliffhanger ending in the bonus scenario, one that involves the apparent, unceremonious death of a certain fan favorite character. This, however, gets rectified in OG Gaiden as said character came back (albeit Brainwashed and Crazy first), and the fans learnt their lesson from the Huckebein case, thus the amount of rage wasn't as tremendous.
The worst troll this troper has seen was on the forum for a Zelda newsite. After a new girl posted "Which Girl should Link be with?", the troll went on a half crazed rant, threatening to sexually assault the poor newb, and any other member who dared to post on that topic. Needless to say, he was banned, and we never heard from her again.
An example so extreme it can't be anything but Stealth Parody: Some guy ranting about the release date of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and recounting an exchange with a GameStop employee that itself would amount to a Real Life trolling if it actually happened. Unsubstantiated Internet-hearsay suggests it's actually a dramatic reading of a GameFAQs posting.
- That's Kevin 'Fragmaster' Bowen of Something Awful fame, who is also responsible for another video in which he takes on the persona of yet another irritated geek petitioning to have Final Fantasy XIII be a Playstation 3 exclusive, making it almost a certainty that the event in question is a blatant, if hilarious, fabrication.
Game designer Derek Smart has admitted that trolling fansites (other than his own) is one of his favorite things to do. He once made the odd move of trolling the largest fansite for a game franchise he was trying to purchase. The flamewar this caused was one of the largest and most epic ever seen... and may have had something to do with Smart's decision not to purchase the franchise after all.
Pick a World Of Warcraft forum topic! Any forum topic!
- Some of them even have trolls who are 'respected parts of the community'.
  - Not as strange as it sounds. The trolls help act as unofficial moderators by keeping the forums free of spam, or are at least funny and helpful if you have a decent question, or stick to groups or people that annoy everyone anyway. Several realm forums have the trolls rated as being the most valuable members in the community!
  - Some trolls, especially in gaming circles, are BunnyEarsLawyers; their goading and aggression are the price you pay for their skill, dedication, and ability. They'd be more valued if they were nicer to normal people, but on the Internet, you take what you can get.
While we're on the subject of Blizzard forums, any fan wishing to have a serious discussion about any Blizzard game would do well to steer clear of the official Battle.Net forums. Trolls are rampant, ranging from "Stop Having Fun" Guys to those with a very broad definition of Serious Business and will thus attack anyone they deem to be "taking these dumb games too seriously." All variants will spam the forums/threads at the slightest provocation (preventing anyone from finding their discussion topic under the mountain of automatically-generated blank/insult posts), with the situation getting so bad that one generous user even put together a Firefox attachment specifically designed to deal with forum spam. Though Blizzard's made several attempts to deal with the problem, imposing participation restrictions and the like, the trolls simply get another CD-key, come back under a different name and try again.
A very common way people troll on GameFAQs is to go to a console's board and flame the hell out of it, usually in a very longwinded rant about why X console sucks, and then flame anyone who defends said console as jealous fanboys who are in denial. Usually, they will post the exact same flame bait topics in other boards with just the console names and a few words switched out and if someone sees the similarities, they will point it out.
- It's called "copypasta".
While we're on GameFAQs, while rare, it seems that some forms of trolling is to purposely act like an idiot, trying to get a rise out of people by being the most incompetent person in gaming or in video game topics. A noob troll on the Final Fantasy XII board on GameFAQs made a topic about how the main characters don't feel any remorse for killing some random enemy soldiers. While a good portion of the replies were something like "It's just a game, they shouldn't have to feel sorry for every single person they have to take down", the guy kept egging people on with his antics about how the main characters were just cold blooded killers. This went on for more than three topics before the troll had his fill of trolling (topics automatically lock when the posts hit 500).
- And in the same board, probably by the same person, the n00b made a topic about how Square Enix should have made the text for the accessories with side effects more clear. Everyone else argued that the text was clear and readable enough that no idiot should be able to miss it. Cue the flame wars.
  - Believe it or not, some people can troll by abusing the "report to moderator" feature found on GameFAQs or other forums. These trolls will search high and low for anyone that broke ANY kind of rule, no matter how minor it is, and report them to the moderators with all speed. It works for them because not only do they get to remain in the shadows and watch all the drama unfold, but if they can get people to openly complain about how the moderators are a bunch of elitist jerks for taking action on small infringements, the troll already has won. Bonus points if the victim calls out the person (though they will never know if it was actually them) for reporting them. Reporting to moderators abuse is hardly dealt with since usually the moderating team is small and they may usually just punish everyone that their reports show without bothering to look at the context. Luckily in some places, abusing the report feature can get that person's privilege to report people revoked forever.
For such a little-known company, Spiderweb Software (maker of Avernum) sure does get an awful lot of trolls on its official forum.
- This may have something to do with the fact that Spiderweb is run by Jeff Vogel, an infamous wag.
Purposely acting like a clueless newb in a video game or a forum for it is more than enough to make many people spit with rage since they believe the person is really that stupid and doesn't know the basics.
There's also trolls that will openly admit to their shenanigans in pissing off other people and will say how happy they are seeing other people get angry by posting angry messages on forums. Of course, trolls bait people into flaming them this way.
In a bizarre case of Art imitating Life, The Sims 3 introduces the option to have your sims troll forums, with a boost to your sim's mood if someone flames back, but a loss if no one pays attention. Let no one say that they never understand their fanbase.
On a Mario form this troper used to visit, there was a Troll who was so infamous that he ended up getting his own virtual trading card (don't ask).
- Mario forum? That wouldn't happen to be digibutter.nerr would it? There was a guy on there who was so hated by the community that they permajailed him. (Permajail is like a permaban but you can still view the forums even if logged in. You just can't post anymore.) And the thing is... he wasn't even a real troll, he just didn't "do enough lurking" on the internet, and came off as a noob. About the only member that didn't flame every single one of his posts was Francis, the forum admin, who is based off the chameleon-nerd character from chapter 3 of Super Paper Mario. The supposed troll hasn't logged in since, apparently.

In Web Comics Fandom

On the forums for Real Life Comics one of several random messages that used to be displayed on the top of the page admonished users that "Feeding trolls makes them too fat to leave."
Referenced by Kevin And Kell here.
Also parodied by XKCD here.
On the Questionable Content forum came the claim to be "trying to stir up some Fan Wank as part of a Xanatos Gambit to steer Jeph away from" romantically pairing Marigold and Hannelore. After half a dozen posts insisting that the disproportionate bisexuality of Yaoi Fangirls and Hannelore's Super OCD-based aversion to sex made keeping them apart was as far from reality sentient miniature robots, and anyone who said otherwise was absurdly out of touch. This is why Jeph stays off the forum.

In Western Animation Fandom

A similar form of Memetic Mutation mentioned above has lead to many calling Brian Koenitzko and Michael Dante DiMartino "epic-level trolls", due to the show both sinking and mocking the Zutara ship several times. Unlike Sakurai and Kojima, a large number of fans like them for this.

Other

You Tube is a breeding ground for trolls. There always be a video with at least one troll comment saying stuff like how the video sucks or the things within the video sucks, or just an offensive comment that has no relevance to the video, followed by defenders of the video flaming the troll. Users who want to avoid such drama will usually disable comments.
- Not to mention the thumbs are abused. Trolls often demote good comments and promote bad ones.
  - Don't forget star ratings as well. Those who want to be an ass will spam 1 star ratings.
  - Considering the sheer amount of comments (on COMPLETELY UNRELATED videos, indeed) talking about a 9/11 conspiracy, you may has come to suspect that there is some sort of organised "9/11 conspiracy" trolling effort.
  - A 9/11 conspiracy conspiracy, you might say.
  - Metaconspiracy.
- There are also other ways trolls have won by:
  - Abusing the copyright laws, claiming videos of their own.
  - Abusing copyright laws by notifying copyright holder about any violation, even if the video doesn't infringe copyright.
  - Abusing the "mark as offensive" system to remove videos (often ones that disagree with their own soapboxing).
- Given the contents of the typical Youtube comment… Heck, the typical Youtube VIDEO, one might well wonder if it's even possible to troll Youtube.
IMDB also, but much worse. Even LiveJournal laughs at it. The sad thing about the IMDB boards is that they had the potential to be great, as there are also some really brilliant posters there. Unfortunately, it's impossible to start a discussion of any kind without summoning a mass of obnoxious trolls whose only answer to everything is a variation of the "you are an idiot!" sentiment and some random nonsensical babbling.
Parody website Amiright has had its fair share of this.
Most Accentuate the Negative internet personas, not just Yahtzee, get this accusation, among them Maddox and John Solomon. Whether or not this is true is largely a matter of personal opinion.
Imageboard 4chan had this taken to heights. They're infamous for raiding whatever has pissed them off, and especially caught the public eye after some idiot posted bomb threats against the Super Bowl. Then a local FOX station's news team did an infamous program on them, labeling them "hackers on steroids" (many of them are script kiddies - a bare few are actual Black Hats) and terrorists. Hilarity Ensues.
- 4chan is often described as “Trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls”
  - The /prog/ board has "Metatrolls trolling trolls trolling trolls". Metatrolls seem to be native to this board and are very rarely seen outside it.
- They also have a number of memes related trolls, including “rating” a troll's post on how good they are at inciting responses and covering that they're a troll (the highest score of course being 9001/10).
  - Complete with feedback: "7/10, would rage again."
  - Sometimes the feedback is actually useful advice. For example: "4/10 - it started well, but the part about conspiracy gave it away."
- Due to moderator shortages, the Troll Problem varies by board. /tg/, for example, doesn't seem to have any mods; Jim Profit, mentioned above, had to have his ass nailed to the wall by Moot himself.
  - It also depends on /b/, /v/, or whatever /b/-like board is experiencing whatever. At one point, /travel/ was descended upon by /b/ tards during the "ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH" meme.
  - /b/tard raids aren't the only plague out there. /prog/ local troll Frozen Void, who is either a master troll or incredible moron, scripted few spambots which operate through proxies. Anontalk (idiotic elitist site gathering pedophiles and morons from 4chan) spambots are often updated to avoid new filters, porn spambots with idiotic comments (the bot first starts a thread and then repeatedly bumps it with short, stupid message ranging from "so hot" to "i came in a toaster) dominate slower boards, idiots (or good trolls) treat /v/ (video game board) as their own blog... This troper remembers a raid from 7chan in which entire pages were filled with nothing but hello.jpg (goatse image). The worst thing about it was that 4chan seemed more intelligent during it... and it was when /b/ wasn't entirely full of idiots.
Ditto Gamespot and GameFAQs!
- No idea about the moderator staff on Gamespot, but GameFAQs is a total haven for any kind of trolls due to the punishments being very lax unless you do something extremely offensive like posting links to porn or rickrolling. The worst that ever happens to a troll is a small loss of karma points and the message(s) being deleted, thus they can continue on and on in moderation and never get in serious trouble, which is why trolling is very high in a lot of boards.
  - Gamespot and GameFAQs share the exact same staff/message board and have done so for years.
  - Trolls actually do get banned eventually. It usually takes a while though. It took more than a year for Butters_1188 to finally get banned. Of course, he came back three days later with three new accounts.
  - And the fact that trolls take awhile to get banned is the reason why most people have given up in reporting them since it can take forever for action to be taken. Not only that, but thanks to trolls doing something extremely annoying to infinity (like posting a rickroll that prevents the user from closing a browser window, posting rickrolls in general, or having a whole board post nothing but fads), stuff that was once minor infractions now carry extreme penalties. For an example, the Super Smash Bros. Brawl board had nothing but fads and other nonsense being posted before and after the game was relesed. What used to be a no karma loss to a 3 karma loss penalty then became a 10 karma loss penalty and/or a warning for that board (warned users were restricted to 10 posts per day and any further rule breaking can result in a suspension or ban).
If you ever see someone post a variation of the phrase “it was a social experiment!” in a Live Journal community, chances are good you've just been trolled.
Any art website or writing/literature web site. One should expect people being a critic on the works they submit, but there those that think being the next Simon Cowell or Gordon Ramsey in terms of being a total jerk and not offering or barely offering any advice to improve is what will make people push themselves improve. Though mostly they're just trolls.
An issue of Marvel Adventures Super Heroes involved Captain America and Rick Jones getting sucked into the Hydra home page. Rick encounters trolls on the messageboard.

Real Life

Sadly, you do get some people off the internet who simply love to annoy others to the extreme, whether it's by their own free will or some sort of mental illness. Many public schools always have at least a few students who will do everything they can to annoy their fellow classmates and the school faculty. Sites like Amiright have tons of people like that.
Old-school Usenet denizens should recall the infamous "net.kooks", a collection of some of the most bizarre or obnoxious trolls who existed at the time. Including memorable characters like James "Kibo" Perry, John Martin Grubor, Steve "Speedbump" Boursy, the "Meowers", the Rev. Steve Ray Winter, Archemedies Plutonium, the Vladimir Fomin entity (later demonstrated to have been at least 3 different people), Dave "True Free Speech" Hayes, the "Nosers", Rev. Colin James III, Dmitri Vulis, Hipcrime, and the alt.syntax.tactical crew; to name a few.
Behold Encyclopedia Dramatica, a site that is a haven for self-aware trolls that enjoy spamming deviantART, My Space, You Tube, and more than a few other sites. As if a quick perusal doesn't make it quite obvious, is simply 4chan's wiki.
- It used to be a satirical site (you can still notice a few traces of funny in some dA-related articles), but thanks to the Anon bandwagon it has become little more than 4chan's bitch.
  - Don't forget SA and SASS. It still is, but part of it is based on explaining memes and a gallery of raided people who pissed off channers.
Interestingly, trolling dates back at least as far as The Renaissance: when Giolamo Savonarola set up his own early Protestant, pseudo-puritanical regime in Florence, the Pope sent the compagnacci ("bad companions") to attend his sermons and make fun of him. The compagnacci, sadly, do not appear to have consisted of Gioele Robinsonni, Tommaso Servo, Corvido T. Robotto, or Michelangelo Nelsoni.
Marcel Duchamp drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa and wrote “She has a hot ass” underneath it. It was praised as True Art and the original copies are prized by collectors with one on loan to the Musée National d'Art Moderne.
- Remember: Duchamp was not a modern artist, his work was purely Dada; it was supposed to be stupid on more than one level. And it's a masterpiece of stupidity. L.H.O.O.Q. is not a work of art; the act of creating it and putting it forth as art is the work of art.
- Remember: He sold his art for millions of dollars. A very successful troll by any measure.
Sasha Baron Cohen in any of his personas. Example: Trying to kiss people random people as Borat, letting a chicken loose in a subway and hopping on people in pursuit, holding fake interviews that annoy the interviewee to no end, crashing a corporate banquet with his cohort by running around in their underwear, and, finally, singing the national anthem and getting all the words wrong. (What you saw in the film was toned down. Cohen and his team had to run their asses out of there, they actually thought they were going to get killed.) It gets worse in Bruno, starting with crashing a fashion show by purposely running into fabric walls and clothing racks while wearing a suit of velcro, faking having a black baby (putting it through luggage, then showing up on a talk show being very irresponsible), and joining the US Army, where the instructors are sick to death of him as training progresses. At one point, he does the Nazi salute when told to salute. It's hilarious.
- The television show is even better at (worse about?) this. Ali G really is a king at reallifetrolling, whether it's asking a priest why so many nuns are part time strippers or wondering what else is sold at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

There's a movie called Troll. I wonder if that has a page, too?

Archived Discussion Main / Troll