Out of Pod Experience

Psychopath, and Sadist...me in a nutshell lol

hi mum \o/

I thought I`d add summat relevant to the thread as per normal

Trollception

My eyes bleed in agony at this article.

So to keep a somewhat modicum of decency and logic into this thread, I will propose something else.

I actually believe and have some basis to theorize, that people on the internet are not sadists nor belong to this extremely "catchy" phrase people spout as "The Dark Tetrad" , but basing myself on historical facts and more recent studies and using my own intelligence, I can safely assume trolls in the internet are just humans:

a) That are at the moment of posting devoid of meaningful social interactions that would help them channel their thoughts elsewhere
b) Carrying everyday frustrations from lack of accomplished goals (monetary, political or love based)
c) Needing to assert presence in any form to feed their ego (the need to make others acknowledge they exist)
d) Seeing others assert their presence by methods they find internally morally wrong or representing ideals they reject
e) Finding ways of quelling their fear of death (and thus non existence) in ways that make them be the center of attention
f) Enjoying the small/large amount of presence they generate asserting them as human beings fulfilling a goal
g) Perceived lack of consequences and reinforcing the behavior giving a tangible reward with minimal effort
h) Vicar-learning of said behaviors show a high level of goal accomplishments in virtual lands
Etc.
And this is just me writing as I go without much thought, could be further polished I know but bear with me.

My point?

Trolling in it´s most raw form (which needs to be differentiated from propaganda based smear attacks that have a finite goal and are another topic) to me only shows a deep seated need from HUMANS to show they EXIST.

"The Need to Exist" as I dub it is a common form of human expression, and only by peers we can satisfy that need. In the virtual world of the "internet" we are just migrating needs from our real life "social contracts" into this playground.

This leads to the eternal quandary of "why people post" at all on any kind of forums or boards if we want to refine this idea.

We are fulfilling social needs, we believe our opinion is important and knowing someone will read and even reply to anything we post gives us reaffirmation.

Trolling is the "negative" (no need to be verbose) way to contribute to this social game.

Fact is, facebook and many other social platforms thrive on this need to be acknowledged. The experiments that show depressing status updates actually alter behavior of people that read it only show many of the common cues of social interaction do exist in virtual land and can be exploited.

Why I bring this? Because in the land of virtual millions, trolling is the shortest route to impose your presence and be acknowledged if only for a brief time, cause a reaction, express your discomfort.

Does this imply people are actually sadists for trolling? No, just merely humans, and as humans, lack of PROPER SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS can and will erode over time the boundaries society sets upon us, but that is just another topic.

So in short, Trolls are people that are simply outcasts of the current trend (not actual outcasts) and their frustration at not understanding the lightning fast trend of a topic or current issue leads them to such acts. Otherwise they would add an opinion in a consequent manner, or bother to explain their viewpoint, or try to debate or ignore it.

Many of the current dramas I see daily on the net (and the trolling that ensues) is to my eyes badly ported customs of human relationships that in their eagerness to be accepted in a land of nothingness end up looking distorted and people just entrench themselves to protect their viewpoint

What I could fathom is that there is a small basis to show that repeated offenders of trolling as a form of communication are more at risk of developing mental issues, not that they suffer them firsthand (but then again, this is a very delicate point and we are grossly generalizing)

I am also taking a classical "Humanist" approach, almost "Rogerian"

If I could try to make sense of that study in a more analytical manner is to show that trolling can be used as an indicator of personality traits (and by logic a set of people with a high preponderance of certain traits will troll more) , but I find preposterous that such a "study" can be applied to a broader audience (due to lack of better studies) , but like many others have written before, this is at most pseudo-science, so I better go to the source to squash doubts:

If you read this study you can evidently see a more "clinical" approach.

Here we see that the only analysis of the scant studies show that trolling is indeed a PLEASURABLE act for a group of people that have a high incidence of behavioral traits classified under "sadism" (which please understand has been stricken off the newest DSM manuals as a mental disorder and is seen now as a more complex construct)

And it kinda makes sense.

Even the article mentions that some authors have shown that anti-social individuals use more technology and thus have a broader presence in the internet (*)

I can reconcile my view with the study by showing that trolling (using vicar learning) can actually erode people´s conceptions of what society deems normal.

So if you have kept with me so far, I believe we can agree that trolling by itself is a negative form of expression, but repeated use shows a high incidence of behavioral traits that are not normal and that it can affect entire communities by repeated use, degrading them, because people will learn that such forms of expression are now "normal"

Food for thought.

o/