December 18, 2004
happy trolls
Besides comment spam, the biggest irritation of having a relatively large blog is what I call “The Happy Troll”.
The blog-frequenting Happy Trolls are quite different animals from the internet trolls of 1997. They’re not trying to turn a Martha Stewart chatroom about home-decoration into a foul-mouthed, hostile flame-war about whether or not the Holocaust actually happened. No, their art is far more subtle than that.
Because the blog owner is far more vigilant about guarding the good karma of his online “space” than a large website, the Happy Trolls have to ply their schtick via stealth. It’s much more passive-aggressive. Much more cleverly disguised.
Basically, the Happy Troll is happiest when he is “shitting in your living room” without you actually noticing. That’s the art of it. He does this by “adding healthy, helpful dissent to the discussion”- at least, that’s what he calls his little turdpiles. And he’s hoping that’s how you and your other readers at first glance see them as- a reasonable yet dissenting voice, good for the debate and democracy itself yak yak yak.
Sure, his manners may be somewhat lacking, his attitude is a bit weird, but because the actual merits of his argument are so valid, relevant and well thought out, to delete them surely would be a form of “censorship”? And as a blogger, would you not be letting your readers and the entire blogosphere itself down by being such a petty, egocentric control-freak?
Ha. I can see you’re already started falling for the Happy Troll’s evil plan. What he’s actually trying to do is make you, the blog owner, feel guilty that he’s pissing you off. He wants you to feel weaker, basically. It’s a power thing, oddly expressed.
Whatever. I delete these losers’ comments, then I ban their IPs. I can smell them a mile away. So they got too may wedgies at summer camp back in the 70s. Not my problem.
Anybody else have problems with Happy Trolls?
