History of Computers - The Internet Troll

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Introduction

According to the infamous UrbanDictionary.com, an internet troll is a “person whose sole purpose in life is to seek out people to argue with on the internet over extremely trivial issues.” They frequent forums as well as youtube, and populate popular videogames such as WoW, LoL and other competitive PC games, trololol.


Overview

Although the true Internet troll is an entity that has no proper beginning, the word troll itself came from the mythological creature called a troll. It was first cited as being used by pilots in the Vietnam by saying they were “trolling for MiGs,” but the first internet uses have been tracked back to the 1980’s but became more popular throughout the 1990’s and on. Their common hub is 4chan.org and they operate on any internet account that has not yet been banned by an administrator. Internet trolling has almost become an art over the past years, and trolls range from those merely posting unnecessary thoughts and opinions to those that flame and rage at your every move. Wanna know more about a troll, click on the following links [[1]], [[2]],and [[3]] . One of the most popular trolling terms is what is know as the rickroll, a link to video of Rick Astley singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ instead of whatever the post promised you. This has became so mainstream that the White House rickrolled their twitter followers in a tweet about the newest correspondence meeting. Wait, yall check out this video of a cute panda bear! [[4]] Trololol.

Also, the introduction of the internet meme Trollface has represented the community of trollers very well. Generally the meme consists of a drawn face, known as the Trollface, and the word "Problem?" or some phrase like that. This image perfectly represents the mentality of an internet troll, and in many instances serves as their calling card.

problem-trollface.png

Another instance of tolling is in videogames. Many players merely join a competitive game and play very stupidly, and purposely lose games for their team and often enticing others into rage tantrums. On a more serious note trolling sometimes has legitimate consequences. One 46 year old man tracked down a 13 year old kid after the child began trolling him after every kill during a game of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Once found, the man violently attacked the kid and began strangling him, and was only stopped when the boys mother came and broke it up. So remember kids, be safe when trolling!

There are also trolls who troll other trolls [5].

Significance

The internet troll has gained in popularity in videogames over the last 10 years or so and is now prominent in most competitive games. It has drastically changed the way many competitive games are played because there is always the chance you are paired up with a troll, so playing with friends is becoming more common especially with all the innovations in online gaming. The growing popularity of trolling has also caused many companies to raise their standards and attempt to remove trolling by placing limits and using peer judged punishment systems, as seen in popular video game League of Legends. Recently, the developers of Rainbow Six: Siege have taken measures to punish trolls who use racist slurs. Although in the experimental phase, they are considering lifetime bans, which would render the players copy useless.

Links

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