There's a troll in the basement!

I believe they call her "Trollga".

An edited version of this 'article' featured in the Science and Technology seciton of BULL magazine's fifth issue for 2012.

If you participate in social networking, chances are you’ve fallen for a hoaxed celebrity death, and the online stakeholder to blame for the creation and dispersal of such swindles is the dreaded troll. Trolling involves the conscious, persistent antagonising of largely unsuspecting internet users, for the sake of one’s own pleasure and ego-building. The practice highlights the trusting nature of many social networkers, which has seen false news stories such as “Morgan Freeman has died! It’s true this time, I promise!” spread virally and covered by major news outlets.

Trolls have been traditionally confined to internet forums with limited scope in terms of subject matter and audience. For example, a typical troll stomping ground is online pop commentary where die-hard fans, or ‘stans’, of Godga (Lady Gaga), Beysus (Beyoncé) and The Holy Spearit (Britney Spears) make ideal targets. Makayla, a self-confessed stan, runs the Britney Spears fan blog I Wanna Troll. With her four-figure follower base, she aims to show her love for Britney with a dash of humour, even if it means participating “in serious stan wars”.

However, trolls don’t restrict themselves to pop culture. Devotees of everything from religious to political movements receive a ribbing on Twitter. @Jesus_M_Christ, @Queen_UK, and @Schapelle all reveal a commitment to getting thousands of followers fired up over serious, occasionally topical issues by challenging their personal beliefs and attitudes. The former of these accounts, for instance, states that “most of Noah's sins when he got to heaven involved bestiality”, providing a somewhat shocking re-evaluation of what remains for many Christians a sacred retelling. Similarly, @Queen_UK represents the British monarch as a gin-oholic who retains a deep hatred for Camilla Parker Bowles, Carole Middleton and Greece – far from the vision of diplomacy, pomp and circumstance perpetuated by the recent Diamond Jubilee.

Trolls are often fans of the very subjects they mock, illuminating the exaggerated identities online fandoms create by subverting them and exposing their fallibility. In this way, trolling is about bringing pseudo-mythical people down to a more human level. 

Such is the pervasiveness of the troll that the popular “trollface” has evolved to poke fun at the foibles of everyday life (think Sydney Uni Memes). With a simple copy and paste, a keyboard warrior can move up the internet food chain to the position of King Troll.

While the comical deconstruction of powerful individuals and institutions is relatively harmless, there’s a blurry line between trolling and cyberbullying. Makayla doesn’t like “to get personal,” but she has seen stan and troll wars descend into personal attacks.

Dedicated members of trolling collectives have, perhaps unwittingly, caused conflicts spilling over into the real world. For example, self-dubbed “/b/tards” on image sharing site 4Chan have received threats of violence, allegations of trading child pornography and a slew of custodial sentences.

Meanwhile, social Q&A platform Formspring applies the anonymity and frankness of trolling on a personal level to create what it calls a “forum for playful, authentic and natural conversations”. Formspring’s crooked reputation stems from the dominance of venomous messages on the website which have reportedly resulted in a number of teen suicides, including that of Jamey Rodemeyer, who received anonymous taunts regarding his sexuality and subsequently committed suicide last September. Formspring has taken some initiative in preventing a repeat of such outcomes by warning against the posting of “mean or hurtful” questions and allows users to block anonymous messages. Whether anyone will take heed of these warnings is uncertain.

A 2006 study conducted by U.S. organisation Fight Crime estimated that more than 13 million American youths had experienced cyberbullying. With Formspring only launching in 2009 and Twitter achieving mainstream popularity around 2008, the popularity of social networking has since grown exponentially and presumably troll-ish behaviour has too.

Trolls come in all forms and potencies, ranging from your “friendly, neighbourhood troll” to “hardcore troublemaker”, but if you find yourself under attack, just remember your mother’s wise words regarding the stolen roll-ups and nicknames – they’re only looking for a reaction.