Online trolls: learning how to fight back

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

In a dispute, truth is born, but this happens only if both opponents are adequate people. When one of them is a troll, the discussion is meaningless. Therefore, if on a social network or on a forum you come across a person who clearly wants to offend you, humiliate you and ruin your mood in all possible ways, know: this is an "ordinary troll", and he will not leave you alone. "Cleo" wants to warn its readers against meaningless communication with online energy vampires, and therefore, especially for you, we found out what distinguishes a troll from an ordinary user and how to resist the attacks of such provocateurs.

The term "trolling" has been around the Internet for a long time, but if you still do not know what exactly it means, we will conduct a short educational program.

Trolling is a special form of online communication, in which the so-called troll tries to psychologically crush his interlocutor: he insults, taunts, hurts, humiliates, causes anger and aggression, provokes a conflict.

There are several opinions as to why quite ordinary people, hiding behind avatars and nicknames, suddenly begin to "troll" others. Someone thinks that they do it just for fun: they sit at home, they are bored, they want to somehow entertain themselves. Others argue that trolls assert themselves in this way, try to show others their superiority, demonstrate that they can plug anyone in the belt and get out of the water. Still others are sure: these people are real sadists, they take pleasure in torturing others, albeit virtually. Well, the fourth say that trolling is not just a modern phenomenon, it is a kind of profession, and competitors of any company are specifically looking for and hiring such provocateurs in order to achieve certain results. Of course, all these motives have a place to be: how many trolls - so many reasons for trolling, everything is very individual. However, there is one thing that all energy vampires have in common - this is the tactics of their behavior. So, let's figure out how to quickly figure out the "common troll" and what to do to stop his attacks on you.

There is one thing that all energy vampires have in common - this is the tactics of their behavior.

Trolls are different …

Internet users are used to conventionally dividing all trolls into several types:

1. Offtopic troll (from English offtopic - off topic). These trolls love to "stand out" - to write something that is completely irrelevant to the topic of discussion. In a forum thread dedicated to cooking, they will easily touch some of the users, pointing out a grammatical error, and then figure out how else to offend the "victim". Only this will in no way relate to cooking.

2. An emotional troll. Such a troll is not distinguished by restraint, he will offend you with the most ugly words, appeal to other participants in the discussion, arrange a real orgy in the comments, trying to attract attention to himself.

3. Troll fighter for justice. His tactics are very interesting: he accuses his opponents of trolling, trying to remain "white and fluffy" in the eyes of other people and at the same time forcing the interlocutor to make excuses.

4. Troll - lover of spoilers (from English spoil - to spoil). Typically, a spoiler is information related to a popular movie or TV series, such as what will happen in the next episode. As a rule, people want to find out for themselves how the film will end, and do not like it when they talk about it on the forums. Trolls take advantage of this and anger viewers of TV shows and films.

Trolls lecture all participants in the discussion, telling how to do it right and how to do it.

5. Know-it-all trolls. They are real intellectuals (at least they think so themselves), and more than anything else they want to show the whole world how smart they are. These trolls lecture all participants in the discussion, telling them how to do it right and how to do it.

6. "Senseless" trolls. Why are they called that? Because they publish and write real nonsense: stupid pictures and texts that are irrelevant, just a set of letters, links to dubious resources, etc.

7. "Actual" trolls. They love to exaggerate topics that are currently being heard by everyone. As a rule, this concerns political realities. Moreover, a special success for such a troll is to knock two participants in the discussion with opposing views on their heads: for example, one who agrees with the president's policy and one who, to put it mildly, does not support it.

8. Cruel trolls. It seems that nothing is sacred to them. They can write nasty things about a person who is no longer there, or about someone who is struggling with a serious illness. For example, one of the recent cases is malicious comments under the news about Zhanna Friske's illness.

How to resist trolls?

There is such a concept - "feed the troll." This means giving him grounds for more and more new comments, supporting his interest in the discussion with his response actions. And perhaps the most important thing in the fight against a troll is not to feed it. Of course, some famous bloggers sometimes break down and respond to their trolls in their own manner (rude, harsh, not choosing words), but this does not stop the network energy vampires. On the contrary, they begin to act even more actively, unless they get banned for their comments and actions. We advise you not to get into a skirmish with such a person: you still cannot reason with him, but you will hear a bunch of nasty things addressed to you and ruin your evening. If it is necessary to give any answer to his comment, then let him be as calm and laconic as possible. This behavior does not suit these pests, and sooner or later the troll will simply not be interested in communicating with you.