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Schadenfreude with Bite (Online Trolling Explained)


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From London Review of Books:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n24/richard-seymour/schadenfreude-with-bite

Quote

‘Every joke calls for a public of its own,’ Freud said, ‘and laughing at the same jokes is evidence of far-reaching psychical conformity.’ To understand a joke is to share a culture or, more precisely, to be on the same side of an antagonism. Trolls do what they do for the ‘lulz’ (a corruption of ‘LOL’, Laughing Out Loud), a form of enjoyment that derives from someone else’s anguish. 

As this review explains, online trolling takes irreverence to its extreme but there is a point to it.  What it means is that the MSMs institutional reticence and decorum is seen as fair game.  The troll view of our media/political world, from the article, is that it is a ‘revolutionary, socialistic, atheistic world, where all means are justifiable’.  Their response is to fight fire with fire by lying, manipulating, and deceiving as Breitbart has done.

If there weren't problems with centralized information programming, then trolls wouldn't exist.  If common values, skepticism and critical thinking were strong then there wouldn't be a foundation for trolling to happen.  So hoping it will disappear isn't realistic.  

But what is the trajectory of how trolling will find its place in the media landscape ?

 

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The article fairly identifies "trolling" of all types...from mainstream artists and authors to internet pranksters, but then falls into the same old trap, trying to segregate good and bad trolling along "moral" social justice lines.   Sorry, can't have it both ways.

"Don't feed the moralists".

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10 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

"Don't feed the moralists".

I hear you, and your approach is consistent with your laissez-faire philosophy.  There are others who think it's a problem, and that people have to deal with it themselves without an official response, ie. govt. intervention.  For that approach, I can't see how you would do it without some kind of community standard, ie. 'morals'.

 

 

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On 2016-12-27 at 9:56 AM, Michael Hardner said:

If there weren't problems with centralized information programming, then trolls wouldn't exist.  If common values, skepticism and critical thinking were strong then there wouldn't be a foundation for trolling to happen.  So hoping it will disappear isn't realistic.  

But what is the trajectory of how trolling will find its place in the media landscape ?

 

It will not go away because we are by nature both rational and irrational beings. So while you might espouse the virtues of critical thinking, sorry, that only appeals to half my brain.

On the other hand, who even says that trolling gets eliminated by a foundation in critical thinking? There can be very purposeful "trolling" that derives from critical thinking. We must avoid broadening the definition of trolling to include things that merely piss us off through biting dark humour such as "satire" or sarcasm, which is a french word.

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That sounds fair to me.  It's not an easy think to separate, and often something that is 90% trolling can have a really good idea in it.  Trolling itself comes to us via the Court Jester who seemed to ... fill a void.  The Court Jester though, laughed upwards at the king, not downwards.

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8 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

That sounds fair to me.  It's not an easy think to separate, and often something that is 90% trolling can have a really good idea in it.  Trolling itself comes to us via the Court Jester who seemed to ... fill a void.  The Court Jester though, laughed upwards at the king, not downwards.

No real difference in the power structure there vs. here. The troll is but one of many internet personas, and there are a number of subcategories. There's misbehaviour trolling, which is almost like a child and then there's purposeful, agenda-driven trolling, which occurs for a variety of reasons whatever they may be.

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On 12/27/2016 at 9:56 AM, Michael Hardner said:

But what is the trajectory of how trolling will find its place in the media landscape ?

It's because it is tolerated in some fashion and there is an inability to see what real trolling is. You get that in the media, because it started on forums and various other social media. This also gives rise to the fake news crap we are trying to combat. No one knows what is real news and what real trolls are.

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A lot of misbehaviours result in people feeling personal pain.Not just trolling, but insults and personal ridicule. It's not "trolling" perhaps.

There is a group of people who take pleasure in seeing others suffer, and find ways to do this even within the rules. Hence, it is Schadenfreude but not trolling. The kind of troll who makes provocative, incendiary comments intended to arouse strong emotion, are hijacking. They want to steal the podium, change the conversation. Such trolls may be interested in achieving a transformation, either in the individual or in society as a whole.

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2 hours ago, OftenWrong said:

A lot of misbehaviours result in people feeling personal pain.Not just trolling, but insults and personal ridicule. It's not "trolling" perhaps.

There is a group of people who take pleasure in seeing others suffer, and find ways to do this even within the rules. Hence, it is Schadenfreude but not trolling. The kind of troll who makes provocative, incendiary comments intended to arouse strong emotion, are hijacking. They want to steal the podium, change the conversation. Such trolls may be interested in achieving a transformation, either in the individual or in society as a whole.

I disagree.  Insults and personal ridicule are definitely trolling. As those lines are put out to bait a certain poster to react.

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Just now, GostHacked said:

I disagree.  Insults and personal ridicule are definitely trolling. As those lines are put out to bait a certain poster to react.

This is going to get deleted again, but what the hell.  I don't see insults and personal ridicule as trolling on here.  I think that has to be planned.  I think emotions sometimes get the better of posters on here and they post in haste, in response to what they might perceive as an insult.  Ridicule is easy, when opinions are so diverse.  It is almost never valid.

Sarcasm is used often as bait.  I do it.  I think it is incumbent on the fish not to bite.

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18 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I didn't hide your post because it's ostensibly related to the OP.  But it's on the line and we are NOT talking about MLW in the OP.

Yeah I don't think this is a great starter of a thread anyways. Not sure what you were expecting with the OP and what kind of posts you were looking for.

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Just now, GostHacked said:

The answers are right in front of you. You don't have to look far.

Yeah, trolling creates divisiveness.   As trolling progresses, society and the world will become more divided, more angry, more hateful.  We've had the most peaceful period on earth for some decades now, and I suppose there is just a natural pendulum swing in the opposite direction and trolling is part of that.   Not that trollers can see that, of course: they're just having fun, and fvck everyone else if they can't take a joke.  

 

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12 minutes ago, dialamah said:

Yeah, trolling creates divisiveness.   As trolling progresses, society and the world will become more divided, more angry, more hateful.  We've had the most peaceful period on earth for some decades now, and I suppose there is just a natural pendulum swing in the opposite direction and trolling is part of that.   Not that trollers can see that, of course: they're just having fun, and fvck everyone else if they can't take a joke.  

 

Divisiveness exists, and trolling gives voice to divisiveness that already exists and is papered-over by MSM reporting.  Does it exacerbate divisions  ?  Maybe but you can't easily separate cause and effect.  If there are channels to represent alternative points of view, then they will be used and they will thrive.

I am still looking for a discussion of end-state here.  The closest parallel I can find in history is Martin Luther's writing against the central church.  That ended (after war) with separate religions being tolerated by nations, ie. segregation.  Given that trolling seems to call a wide spectrum of values into question, rather than just different interpretations of religion, I don't see how that would fall out.

Perhaps a balkanization of North America, with states demanding to opt-out of national laws and even constitutions ?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-donald-trump-mayors.html?smid=tw-nytmetro&smtyp=cur

The Mayor of New York seems to be leading a kind of secessionist movement.

Quote

“Any one city could say that we’re not going to turn our police forces into immigration enforcers,” Mr. de Blasio said in an interview, referring to what could be the practical result of statements by Mr. Trump vowing to deport undocumented immigrants. “But wouldn’t it be stronger if 200 cities said it and did it simultaneously?”

In a template for coordinated action, immigration officials from nine of the country’s largest cities, including Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago, and led by New York, held a conference call this month with the White House to press the Obama administration for swift changes on immigration before Inauguration Day.

 

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