The Trolling They Did

At one point in time. trolling was looked upon as an activity of amusement. Early internet definitions use words like "pointless" but "mutually humorous" to describe such interactions. It felt as though raids, dumb arguments, and pranks were taken far less seriously before. One could act out the role of Internet Trickser and be appreciated for it if they did it artfully. The word's popular connotation now is by default, almost entirely negative. The accumulation of flaming, misinformation and other intentionally malicious social interaction into the word "trolling" feels similar to the debate over hacker/cracker terminology. The English language labeling of state astroturfing as "troll-activity" has certainly not helped the repuation. As people who live in the murk of digitial spaces, our own experiences with trolling are something different. Especially on imageboards. There is an expectation that one will encounter autists, schizos, assholes et cetera. That we learn to tolerate and/or filter the soykafty communication is simply a part of the culture. Because of this, do anons still understand of trolling as something of meaningless humor? Or have we too become tired of it? This is a thread to reminisce on any personally nostalgic funposting and discuss the state of amateur trolling. Obviously, refrain from practicing the craft in this discussion ;)

>>29739 >Obviously, refrain from practicing the craft in this discussion ;) no u I 'member when we used to do those non-IP blocked news or surveys for something stupid like "favorite school lunch" and people would say foodie mcfoodface or something similar. I never participated in anything big or criminal because NYPA There was a bridge naming in Italy where IIRC 4ch got the name changed to something stupid and the mayor got really mad and decided he was just going to name it himself. I think that the world co-opting came from the behavior of IB in general. Like most things, it goes from fringe to mainstream, rather than reinventing a name for the behavior, it just carried over. The fact that weaponised autism as it used to be called has turned into actual information warfare is an interesting evolution, but it takes away the innocent, fun and lighthearted nature that troll campaigns started with.

I've been on chans and social media since 2008, I just deleted all my FB and everything except twitter where I am relatively anonymous and only scroll for the news. Social media and chan culture is populated by all manner of shizos, autists, spergs, sociopaths, gaslighters, frenemies, and soul suckers. It is literally hell. Where I was in my late 20's when I got sucked in, most others here now have literally be born into it and the mutational effects on their psychology have been several times what us "old users" endured. That's why I'm leaving and will mainly lurk and odd chan here or there. I'm moving to the mountains this year because I scored a comfy WFH gig where I can touch grass 24/7 and can escape this hell. For those of you still trapped. Im sorry

trolling was an art while the opponents where smart low iq monkeys today are such easy prey its the bigger challenge to convey the message clearly without them turning it into chinese whispers hearsay. They lack the mind to everyone's dismay to interpret a message correct in context and thats all you see today - discussions are falling into contrarian disarray. Now the meta discussion: Most people are natural trolls because they lack the ability to be astute and only post to contribute. The pleb feels the need to participate without getting hate and so most posts are at best filler and at worst a discussion killer. As they cant meaningfully participate they post stupid nonsense which does trigger people and gets em replies in hate. Next you know most of the thread can be considered spam and people rather quit than eat the entire plate of garbage to get to the ham. -------------------------------------------------------- Last thought on possible insanity: Since we got chatbots now we could make filter bots - same tech could filter out posts with no contributing message content. This might kill the pleb natural troll. And what a wonderful world where you get some cryptic algorithm to prefilter what messages you get to see. Let the machine create your entire reality.

>>29755 Fuuuuck my dude, this hit close to home... I remember in 8th grade I was joking with the class edgelord and he was like "yo man check this soykaf out, my brother showed me it" and that was my introduction to 4chan back in the early 2000s. I don't know if its just nostalgia, or just the sheer volume of posters that made everything soykaf, or was it always soykaf? I feel like it was more fun back in the day. I remember it distinctly getting worse around 2015 and beyond, the death of chan after chan made me sad, but I also feel like I spent too much time there over the years. I also cant pinpoint the exact timeframe I realized I was on the chans too much, but it really fuarrrked with my upbringing.

I don't know if trolling is more frowned upon now or if we're just older so it's not amusing anymore and our peer group consists of people who also find it annoying. Most trolling has always been frowned upon by everyone except other trolls, or at least that's been the way it's been since the early 2000s. If you're trolling, people who don't like trolls won't associate with you, and you end up surrounding yourself with other trolls, which warps your perspective on how acceptable it is. I liked trolling when I was younger. But now I see it for what most of it really is: just being an annoying asshole. >>29756 >trolling was an art trolling was a art* ;)

>>29757 i remember browsing 7chan endlessly in 2008/9. those were truly better days.

>>29757 the fappening and the 2016 election totally killed a lot of ib's. the formation of all the cyber activism under the umbrella of "anonymous" was the pinnacle of what ib's could achieve but also their downfall; as it drew more attention it got more people to visit even though ib's were not intended for mass consumption. /b/'s goal of exercising an invisible dictatorship over internet culture succeeded but at a great cost.

You're missing the cultural cue in chans origin. Chans were never l33t to begin with, it's the western variety that branded itself as place for anime lovers, in Japan where they originate your average anonymous imageboard was like what you'd expect from modern reddit or facebook: a forum for office workers and housewives, not a sophisticated internet decadent.

>>29760 >picrelated Interesting graphic. There was a certain charm to the era before phone posting. The technologically determined gate keeping attracted a certain type. A proper desktop/laptop lends itself to effort posting, even if it's very low brow high brow, but 4chan is so popular now that no one goes there anymore. As for image boards and le troll culture in general, I've come to view it and most anons sensibilities as interesting as any other counter culture. The most interesting that I've come across in the wired, but maybe I'm in too deep. Is there a more vibrant digital culture out there? Maybe I've overlooked something over the years because I've been too busy soykaf posting. And which one of you is trolling in in this thread right now? I've got my eyes on you.

>>29739 I think that the negative connotation related to trolling is a combined result of cynical and jaded outsiders looking in and cynical outsiders attempting to wield it as a tool. The public's exposure to trolling is through modern political trolling. This is (mostly) undertaken by cynical actors who believe it worked in 2016 and want to recapture that glory today and that's seen for what it is. Meanwhile I know (otherwise intelligent) people who believe the OK hand sign is a Nazi Dogwhistle. Having been there when Operation OK-K-K launched: that's still funny every time it happens. Trying to carry that operation on now though wouldn't be funny unless you could target some other more meaningful symbol or some differently aligned group. The best trolling is always an act of innovation, a new meme that hits just the right nerve or a prank nobody expects or an iteration on a previous theme. Think back to the more long running trolls and realize: unless they had a definite end date (poll manipulations) those that were funny for more than a day lasted a week or so. If a troll was continued later it was because some remix of the joke or some particular reaction sparked new interest.

Y'all are putting the dates for trolls getting a bad name in the normal peoplephere waaaay too late. normal people have always hated trolls as far as they're aware of them, and the stereotype of the angry idiot in the internet comment section is just about as old as normal people on internet comment sections. Its possible things have changed some, 2016 certainly had its effect on how the cathederal is talking about them, but by and large the attitude hasn't changed that much. Of course in the internet culture I think most people still appreciate a good Troll, but not all trolls are neccisarly great. They have to be witty, and a bit novel, and a lot of the low hanging fruit has been picked. Take the Sam Hyde school shooter bit. That was pretty funny when he got on major news sites the first time. Should someone pull that off again, or something similar, it won't be as good.

>>29798 Sam Hyde is a pedophile who abused children as young as 15yo. Don't give that creepy predator any more attention.

>>29799 >pedophile >children as young as 15 Cringe. Are anglos really this dumb?

>>29800 >abloo bloo bloo don't call my favorite overrated hack no no words!

>>29808 Keep seething iDubbbz

>>29799 If you have compelling evidence that he is a pedo, I encourage you to do what it takes to bring him to justice, which is to say render him an inert pile of flesh. Either way, I don't see how it relates to this thread. Pedo or no, he's a good example of a trollish person and internet funnyman, and you're bringing him way more attention than he'd have gotten if you just left the post as it was. Also lol that idubbz thing was pretty funny. Also a fine and current example of trolling.

>>29810 >Also lol that idubbz thing was pretty funny. Also a fine and current example of trolling big deal, i see retards fighting every week online

>>29800 >Cringe. Are anglos really this dumb? No, dumber. Ive heard mention of 23 year old "children".

>>29760 I believe I found this was screenshot was shared somewhere else on lain, but the People do not have arguments here seems a good companion to your graphic. Hell, look at how this thread is derailing into Sam Hyde soykaf

>>29814 I suspect then"dead internet theory" applies to 4chan more than anywhere else. It really seems like a bot arena in there. I have a hard time believing actual humans go there on a regular basis.

>>29817 >I suspect then"dead internet theory" applies to 4chan more than anywhere else. Wow, i never thougt about it that way, that sound so real :o I always make sure to be 100 digital units away from anything related to 4 chan, so i don't pay too much attention to what the current state of it is. Nice to found one more reason to keep that garbage dump on my blacklist of websites i'll never visit

>>29817 The entire point of running bots is the viewers. The real people are perhaps overshadowed by bots but the bots are only there because of the real people and it got worse precisely because the site got popular which also increased demand to influence them.

>29756 > low iq monkeys today are such easy prey its the bigger challenge to convey the message clearly without them turning it into chinese whispers hearsay. They lack the mind to everyone's dismay to interpret a message correct in context and thats all you see today - discussions are falling into contrarian disarray. Today just enough is pointing fallacies and it's boring

>>29827 fallacy chart is mostly used wrong. people who use fallacy chart lack education to know the background and they likely never learned latin. Their fallacy categories were meant for rigorous absolute moral judgement not practical situations. I.E. morally robbing is wrong and that remains true even if a robber points it out (tu quoque) but practically there's nothing unfair about stealing your stolen goods back from the robber. Its a different argument and the people running around with their chart are too stupid to get it.

> I.E. morally robbing is wrong and that remains true even if a robber points it out (tu quoque) but practically there's nothing unfair about stealing your stolen goods back from the robber. Its a different argument and the people running around with their chart are too stupid to get it. Because context does matter. Each informal fallacy it may be correct or incorrect depending on the context. > Their fallacy categories were meant for rigorous absolute moral judgement not practical situations. The golden rule, more exactly

>>29832 Their reasoning was context free because their goal was universal morals that are always true. That's also why they list slippery slope as a fallacy. If A->B is not absolute always true its false for their purpose of finding rules that are always true. people are unaware of the context of the fallacy charts creation.