How did internet trolls first emerge, and what creates a troll?

[blackeagle007]

They come from somewhere. Curious as to where. There was this great flame war of 99, not sure what that was about. But what turns someone into an internet troll?

[najekim]

Trolls have existed for some time. Their beginnings can be traced back to 1988 when IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was the only game in town for live messaging between people by text only. But in 1993 the World Wide Web Internet protocol and browser was released to the public much to the dismay of Gopher users, like myself). Shortly after that, on-line chat services like CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online (where I met my wife) started becoming popular, then the trolls exploded and has evolved into what we have to put up with today.

[Chazmatazz269]

Mostly people who are completely ineffectual in their lives but find some kind of power in getting a rise out of others on the internet. They are also cowards who wouldn’t dare talk the same kind of sh*t to another person in real life.
If you don’t feed the trolls, they’ll go away on their own. Some of them permanently. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[Nikki1989]

"Trolling" in spirit goes back to con men and hoaxsters who screwed with people in multiple ways. Now the trolls can do it behind the safety of a computer screen. Even worse, many can even go as spineless and as cowardly as possible by posting anonymously. On here the trolls are even given an extra tool of abuse, the "no replies" option, which this platform, if it had any common sense and decency, would remove permanently.

[dudeinohio]

Many people incorrectly call people a troll, when they aren't.

A troll is a person who posts something in order to get a certain response.

Origin: trolling for fish. Put line in water and see what you find.