Are we seeing evolution in action on this thread?
Evolution of internet troll, showing a speeding up of the genetic mutations reflecting a twisted version of Moore's Law:
2000-2005: Blunt-nosed individuals who were the perpetual Mr Angry at anything and everything different from their tiny, narrow view. Very obvious and only the stupid among us were caught by their traps.
2005-2009: Slight increase in subtlety, putting in barbed but contrary opinions to rile up forum natives. Evolution probably came about because their mother slapped them too many times for getting warning letters from their ISP over complaints.
2009-2012: The troll genome splits into two separate troll sub-species. Sub-species 1, the sycophant, joins forums and waits for retrograde trolls to come along and pretends to be a normal poster agreeing with the faux-subtle trolling causing yet more biting from the normal, human forum natives. Sub-species 2, the ambush troll, acts like Kevin the Teenager on threads that are slightly controversial, for example getting all petulant when someone criticises or praises something outside the bounds of what the Daily Mail sees as acceptable. This evolution came about through the invention of quite good troll-finding and troll-killing tools for forum administrators and moderators, it was either evolve or be perma-banned from the internet eventually.
2012-2013: As a result of the increased awareness of internet trolls, trolls had to evolve yet again to survive. The "best" genes from the two sub-species above combined to create the "moral crusader" troll. If you said Maggie Thatcher was a vicious nasty old hag, he'd be along to defend he with faux-indignation about how it was subversive lefties who were the real problem, if you had said Maggie should be deified for her services to Britain he'd be along to vilify her with slightly twisted mis-quotes about her wanting to kill society. That was their most effective trolling mechanism, taking real things and twisting them slightly to cause normal humans to get annoyed but not so obviously that they call "troll". On forums like this, a "moral crusader" would see lots of threads bagging agents then take that along with made-up facts and anecdotes and get trolling either for or against agents depending on the way their mind slipped that day.
2013: The latest generation of troll is evident in this thread: The faux-thick contrarian. He puts out opposite views to the mainstream, often with ideas so utterly bereft of any intelligent premise that even experienced forum moderators are conned into thinking he can't really be a troll. Unfortunately for the faux-thick contrarian, he is attracted to the wrong sort of forum, for example visiting ContractorUK and pretending to be a successful contractor when in reality someone with his views and lack of intelligent thought would have been blacklisted years ago and would most likely be a penniless drunk sleeping under the arches of a bridge somewhere in London. Probably won't last long as a species of troll as moderators will ban them for being so thick as needing euthanasia rather than for trolling.
The evolution of the forum troll may already be in its last-dying-gasp stage of life as younger trolls frequent more modern media sources such as Facebook and Twitter. Old-style forum trolls are at a severe disadvantage here as they haven't been outside of their homes in 20 years and really know nothing of young people except for those nasty websites they visit. Thankfully, they have about as much chance of successful reproduction as Nick Clegg has of being the leader of a majority Lib Dem government, mainly because they're all 40-something sweaty males still living with their mother and that there are no genuine female examples of their species in existence.
So, pity the likes of masonryan, he's the last in a long and undistinguished line of trolls and is probably facing extinction. Should we have some sort of "home" for them? I'm thinking of the likes of the old-style mental health hospitals where people could come in and laugh at the afflicted.
Evolution of internet troll, showing a speeding up of the genetic mutations reflecting a twisted version of Moore's Law:
2000-2005: Blunt-nosed individuals who were the perpetual Mr Angry at anything and everything different from their tiny, narrow view. Very obvious and only the stupid among us were caught by their traps.
2005-2009: Slight increase in subtlety, putting in barbed but contrary opinions to rile up forum natives. Evolution probably came about because their mother slapped them too many times for getting warning letters from their ISP over complaints.
2009-2012: The troll genome splits into two separate troll sub-species. Sub-species 1, the sycophant, joins forums and waits for retrograde trolls to come along and pretends to be a normal poster agreeing with the faux-subtle trolling causing yet more biting from the normal, human forum natives. Sub-species 2, the ambush troll, acts like Kevin the Teenager on threads that are slightly controversial, for example getting all petulant when someone criticises or praises something outside the bounds of what the Daily Mail sees as acceptable. This evolution came about through the invention of quite good troll-finding and troll-killing tools for forum administrators and moderators, it was either evolve or be perma-banned from the internet eventually.
2012-2013: As a result of the increased awareness of internet trolls, trolls had to evolve yet again to survive. The "best" genes from the two sub-species above combined to create the "moral crusader" troll. If you said Maggie Thatcher was a vicious nasty old hag, he'd be along to defend he with faux-indignation about how it was subversive lefties who were the real problem, if you had said Maggie should be deified for her services to Britain he'd be along to vilify her with slightly twisted mis-quotes about her wanting to kill society. That was their most effective trolling mechanism, taking real things and twisting them slightly to cause normal humans to get annoyed but not so obviously that they call "troll". On forums like this, a "moral crusader" would see lots of threads bagging agents then take that along with made-up facts and anecdotes and get trolling either for or against agents depending on the way their mind slipped that day.
2013: The latest generation of troll is evident in this thread: The faux-thick contrarian. He puts out opposite views to the mainstream, often with ideas so utterly bereft of any intelligent premise that even experienced forum moderators are conned into thinking he can't really be a troll. Unfortunately for the faux-thick contrarian, he is attracted to the wrong sort of forum, for example visiting ContractorUK and pretending to be a successful contractor when in reality someone with his views and lack of intelligent thought would have been blacklisted years ago and would most likely be a penniless drunk sleeping under the arches of a bridge somewhere in London. Probably won't last long as a species of troll as moderators will ban them for being so thick as needing euthanasia rather than for trolling.
The evolution of the forum troll may already be in its last-dying-gasp stage of life as younger trolls frequent more modern media sources such as Facebook and Twitter. Old-style forum trolls are at a severe disadvantage here as they haven't been outside of their homes in 20 years and really know nothing of young people except for those nasty websites they visit. Thankfully, they have about as much chance of successful reproduction as Nick Clegg has of being the leader of a majority Lib Dem government, mainly because they're all 40-something sweaty males still living with their mother and that there are no genuine female examples of their species in existence.
So, pity the likes of masonryan, he's the last in a long and undistinguished line of trolls and is probably facing extinction. Should we have some sort of "home" for them? I'm thinking of the likes of the old-style mental health hospitals where people could come in and laugh at the afflicted.
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