Against my own better judgement, I am going to make another attempt at a My Take. Feel free to troll me as much as you like, but you won't get much of a reaction from me other than possible sacrcasm, as I am a self-proclaimed Princess of Sarcasm.
Let's begin. On every Internet venue that allows users to post comments, there will always and forever be Internet Trolls. Click the link if you're confused about what a troll is. GaG is no exception. There are various types of trolls and methodolgy of trolling. In thinking about writing this, I had to admit to myself that I am occasionally guilty myself. Sometimes I will troll the posts of a troll or catfish to call them out (usually with sacrcasm - and never outright meaness). I think the reason that I sometimes do that, is because it trips me out how many people think that these people are real, or the posts are serious. Maybe I feel bad for the people that have been fooled. Yet, if ignorance is bliss, why should I care? In reality, I suppose I don't.
Sometimes trolls can be funny. Ok, regardless of how annoying or pathetic many troll posts are, some can be mildly entertaining. Once in a while we see one that just so intentionally stupid, you just have to laugh. That type of trolling (to me) is basically harmless. You can either choose to scroll right past it, or you can click on it and jump in for a quick laugh and departure from your otherwise stressful, boring, or average day. Laughter is good for us in so many ways. Everyone knows that.
However, it seems that the majority of the time, trolling is done to amuse only the troll, by getting reactions from others. According to some research, these are the habitual trolls that display high degrees of Psychopathy, Narcissism, and most of all Sadism (usually of the non-sexual type) in their real lives. Here's a pretty good 3 minute You Tube video that I found interesting (no I don't believe everything I read/see/hear on the Internet).
Anonymous negative trolling can have real life consequences. Here I'm referring to the trolls that are blantant antangonizers. For whatever their mental or emotional reasons and needs for coming on to the Internet to incite others to argue, raise their blood pressure, and genreally get people upset, they're obviously apathetic and incapable of empathy. What's interesting to me though, is that they also seem oblivious to any real life consequences of their on-line bevahior. Again, I'm not speaking to the generally harmless "fun" trolls here that are attempting to lighten our web reading with stupid humor. I mean the trolls that are in denial about how negative they are in real life. They will tell you that they are "nice to people" at work, socially, etc., but are only "mean" on the Internet. Yet, they have not a care in the world about upsetting or hurting someone that they don't even know here in cyber world. Here is an ABC News Article about some real life consequnces for people that "thought" they were anonymosuly trolling.
The worst ones on GaG are the Anonymous "baiting" trolls. These are the ones that I believe need help in real life. I'm not joking. I mean actual psychotherapy. It's been a sad and frsutrating trend here on GaG lately. Trollng is generally a grey area in the TOS of most sites, and I would be among those that wouldn't like it if every single post was scrutinized for possible trolling and deleted if deemed so. But the sadistic trolls that come here to incite hate are a cancer to the community. Why they seem to "get off" on baiting people into race/gender/religious/origin arguments, I do not understand. Sure, intelligent/thoughful people should be able to respectfully debate politics, or Creation vs. Evolution and other meaningful subjects. But there are ways to do that without trolling and just being outright oppugnant. If you care to take the time to watch, here's another You Tube video of 10 vile, disgusting, and vicious Internet trolls who paid real life consequences for what they thought was their "right" to do as they please to others on the web.
If you're gonna troll, have the courage to do so without hiding behind that Anonymous blue/pink silohuette with the question mark face. I'm all for having fun here on GaG. I don't mind the trolls (and even sometimes the catfish) who's intentions are generally benign. As I said in my opening paragraph, I've done it too. But not anonymously, and not with malicious intent. But if you're going to come on here simply to flame, incite, and otherwise stir up negative turmoil, then come out from behind your mask, so that the rest of us know who you are.
Yeah, I know. You don't need my permission. You will continue to troll as you like, probably anonymously. You can also tl;dr me right now. But you can't do it anonymously. This is MY Take. If you wanna troll me, show your face. :)
Trolls Gonna TrolLOLOLOLOL Baby!
Bring on the tl;dr's
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