What is the psychology of a bona fide online troll?

[Anonymous]

Whether we admit or not all of us at some point have been trolls. Catch someone in the right mood and even the most thoughtful person will get off on antagonizing people.

But there is certain percentage of people who do almost nothing BUT troll if they read anything they don’t like and/or see an opportunity to tear someone down (a distressed person looking for genuine advice).

However trolls are usually very childish and stupid. Easy to identify them quick. But the smartest ones are a bit more dangerous. They will draw out responses to make you believe they are on your side and suddenly trash and humiliate you.

I wonder if peoples online behavior often mirrors their real world thinking patterns more than we would like to admit.

[DEXTER_LIVES]

I think you will find trolling is like an exaggeration of an individual's personality. If somebody is funny, then their trolling is just gonna be random silliness. If somebody is angry, hurt, or jealous inside, then their trolling is gonna be filled with hurtful.

[DEXTER_LIVES]

*Filled with hurtful content.

[Anonymous]

There are a few on here that do nothing but troll 90% of the time. They are usually right-wingers and when they can't win a debate they insult, that's all they got.

[Agagagagaga]

Says the same pink anon who literally trolls every single political thread to tell everyone how stupid and terrible conservatives are. 🙄

[Asker]

“ our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate”

- Rick Warren (notable American author)

Now I intentionally left politics out of my question miss pink anon. I didn’t want to go down that gaping rabbit hole but since you just HAD to bring it up…I will say this: there between arguing to BE right vs arguing about WHAT is right. Also in the last 10 years or so I have noticed that one aide of the political aisle is much worse about this than the other.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten into a debate with a leftist and they either 1) abandoned facts and tried to use emotional nonsense to “win” an argument 2) they resort to calling me every name in the book when they can’t win an argument.

Serious it’s an act of Congress (pun intended) that we can agree on something. I remember one time I can to calmly but consistently pressured a liberal guy on here (he is in his late 30s) to finally admit the BLM riots were embarrassing and factually claimed over 30 lives (including innocent black lives), did over 2 billion dollars in property damage, drove a huge wedge into already polarized country and financially abused/scammed by the leaders at the top (e. g. Patrisse Cullors buying a mansion). He painstakingly and rather weakly just said that the riots “weren’t our best moment”. That’s as far as I got. Virtually no other self avowed leftist I met otherwise will ever openly admit to that.

Meanwhile myself and most conservatives do not nor ever approved the January 6th riots. I quickly admittedly that isolated incident was ugly and embarrassing.

[Asker]

But I will argue with FACTS that:

1) BLM riots did exponentially worse damage and costs than the Jan 6th riots.

2). The Jan 6th rioters were (rightfully) fully prosecuted while our sitting VP Kamala Harris was raising bail bonds to get rioters out to jail (one who went on to murder someone).

3.) The entire Democratic Party got behind BLM. Not one leftist politician decried that rioting insanity. The only very brief exception was a rare moment where Joe Biden said that the “defunding the police” slogan was stupid and detrimental. I guess a broken clock is right twice a day.

Anyway why do I bring up the above example? I bring it up because most leftists would call me a “troll” for bringing up the facts above. How dare I point out the truth about the destruction BLM rioting did to America. That makes me “racist” to point out facts or something.

But seriously do you really believe I “hate” people who can logically and coherently debate with me? I actually like them, do you know why? Because they challenge me to think harder so I can better understand the truth. But do you ever feel that was when someone disagree with you (calmly and logically) over politics?