On Internet Civility and The Global Trend Toward Trollism

On Internet Civility and The Global Trend Toward Trollism

Ok, so this post is not like most posts that I write where I have a larger point and a goal… or something. It’s more of a pondering really – and it was all kicked off by a reader here at THinc. A reader who asked some really good questions that made me stop and think. And think. And think some more.

So the basic question of the day is – why are some people complete dorks online? I mean, it’s not like we are all saints in real life. But, online trolling is just a whole new level of insanity. I actually just went looking for some good examples of this kind of craziness but none of them were really ok to copy here. But I did just go looking for an old post I had made on Reddit detailing out my thoughts on how the teleportaion/cloning machine in the movie The Prestige didn’t work… and one of the responses I got a little while longer was simply:

“No. Douche.”

and then another… directed at another commenter discussing my theory.

“Don’t tell people what to do. Butthole.”

I mean, can you think of a face to face conversation where that would be appropriate? Like, even remotely? But to think that now that we are all so disconnected from the humanity of the other person on the other side of the post whom we are disagreeing with, … that it allows us to be raving lunatics? I mean? Is that what it is?

Then, if that is the case, maybe it’s sort of like the way people in mascot costumes have to have body guards at all times because otherwise they’d get their heads bashed in by crazy peoples who don’t have a clue in the world that there is a human inside? Is that what this problem of Troll Influx Disease is that we are having?

Or what about people flipping others off while on the highway. If two random people were standing in a bank line together, one wouldn’t suddenly flip the other off because he leaned back to far into their own personal space would he? (Or she? Heaven forbid I live you women out of this fantastic conversation. I mean, equal rights for all, right? hahah.)

Which brings me to the email that Kenny sent my way about the conversations we have here. If this is your first time here because you searched on Trolls, Trolling, or the like… and you have zero idea where you are… the 4 people that hang out here and I, tend to have long winded, and intense conversations about complicated movies.  Here are just a couple examples of some of the top commented posts you can check out, all stats up to date as of this writing:

Uncanny – 124 Comments – 34,105 words
Inception – 138 Comments – 27,317 words
The One I Love – 159 Comments – 36,514 words
Memento – 231 Comments – 65,538 words
The Prestige – 378 Comments – 93,957 words

Just to put those five example posts in context, the combined comments in those posts are over 250,000 words. That is more than the first three books of the Harry Potter series combined. Or, more words than the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring combined. So there are a lot of words getting transacted here. This really isn’t me patting myself on the back, rather its context for the kind of conversations that happen here. The really deep and really complicated and involved conversations that could potentially lead to the kind of trollism chaos that is most likely to happen in conversations like these.

So if there are so many words getting bantied about here, how much name calling is happening here? How much chaos? How many trolls? Why don’t we pick a random number between 1 and 10 to pick one of the top ten most commented blog posts here on the site. Went out to random.org, and got the number 9… which is “Time Travel Movie Time Lapse Explained“. There are 79 comments on the post and so let’s do the same thing out at random.org again, but this time for the number 55, which brings us to a fellow named Mike, and his comment. You really don’t need to understand the movie, or his comment to get the point that I am making here. Just know that Mike disagrees with the overall thread of the conversation happening at that point in the conversation:

“I, too, have had problems understanding how the characters are able to benefit from these photos and am a little frustrated by the pat explanations being offered. I basically enjoyed the movie and found elements, such as Callie’s manipulations and the implications of the photo that the scientist sent to his colleague, really cool. But I still find problems with characters being in the know of conditions that would (I think) be occurring on disparate planes. Here’s my thinking:If I were to receive a photo of my TV screen showing that Djokovic has beaten Federer, I might be like, “That’s weird. That match hasn’t happened yet.” I may trust the photo and bet on Djokovic, find the photo was correct, and continue benefiting from its insights. However, that iteration of myself could not be in communication with the iteration of myself who is acting as the vehicle of my fortune—not without a time machine. So, back to the movie: There must be an iteration of the characters first encountering the machine, seeing the initial gambling results posted to their living room window, and being like, “What is this?” Maybe they’ll go ahead and place the bets and find that the picture is telling the future, and maybe from here, they will continue to emulate the daily photo and/or begin posting messages for the profit of “later” iterations of themselves. In this sense, the iterations of themselves on a more temporally advanced plane will continue to benefit the iterations on a later plane, and an endless ripple of these transactions will transpire. I could deal with this scenario. However, in the movie, the characters are acting as both prognosticator and beneficiary. A case in point: They can’t be both the ones to initially discover the mystery camera (i.e., the ones to find the fallen coat hanger photo) and the ones to profit from the initial betting results. This would imply that the various iterations of themselves have awareness of one another’s existence and actions. This is mind-bending in what I consider an illogical and damning way. At this point, the only way to save the scenario is to introduce time travel, which I see no reason to believe is a component of this story.”

So basically Mike says – politely – you guys aren’t making any sense at all. Here’s what I think happens in this movie’s universe when x, y, and z happen.  He didn’t call me a douche. Or a ‘butthole’ [sic], he just said he disagreed and then explained why. But maybe that was a random coincidence, and everyone else is trolling? Let’s try it again. Random 1 – 10, Hahah – I kid you not, it just gave me a 1. Which is the Prestige – by and far my most famous and controversial movie post. Now let’s get a random number between 1 and 378… and then I’ll count all the way down to that comment… (What a horrible idea this is.) And the number is 57. Off I go! Don’t worry. I’ll be ok, really.

“The majority of these posts have too many flaws to their overall argument. Many have only believed in what they wanted to believe which not only covers the sci-fi side but every side. Some are excellent at explaining their percieved thoery of what happened. However they make the mistake of trying to disprove other theories forgetting that this was a film. A film can be or do whatever it wants to and this one especially exploits this. Some facts become lies while other facts remain facts to suit a given argument. My point being that this has been thought over waaaaaaaaaaaay too much by everyone including me and it ruins the film more than it enhances it. Good to debate but pretty much pointless, even my post.”