Internet Trolls
You ever got into an argument with someone on the internet?I'm not talking about a civilized argument where both parties involved exchange arguments in a civilized manner,no,i'm talking about arguing with someone who their main goal is to not show you their point of view but is to simply annoy the life out of you.I used to be one of those guys,the keyboard warrior.
It all started back in 2010, when i made my first Facebook account. I was 15,at the prime of teenage-hood, which means i had all the energy and time in the world. My trolling started off small,with slight jabs i constantly threw at people's posts. My favorite back then used to be,"this is why Facebook needs a dislike button". I would post this under literally every post on my timeline,just to provoke a response and boy did the responses come,and the more they came,the more energized i got for more trolling.Because most of peers were not on Facebook then,as they were too busy actually living life,most of my Facebook friends were older people who,when i think about it now,i have no idea why they accepted my friendship request. It was very easy to solicit a response from the oldies,as i used to call them,and they took the bait every single time.I would wake up every morning,get on my phone and have one mission and one mission only ,to work up as many nerves as i possibly could,and i was very good and efficient at it.
The more annoyed responses i got from people,the better i felt about myself. Their annoyance was like pouring petrol on my adolescent ego fire,and the trolling just kept getting worse and worse. I decided to franchise it,moving my talents to Twitter,the troll's paradise. The thing my troll persona liked about Twitter was that,it offered a more direct and hence effective channel to trolling. Unlike with Facebook,i did not need to be your friend to tell you how much you suck. I would spend my days sending all kinds of abuse towards anyone who was anyone,celebrities and other Twitter users with no discrimination.The thing about trolling is that,it is like a drug.The more you do it,the more tolerance you build for it.For example,if you troll someone and it prompts a rather mellow reaction from them,as time goes on,you get bored and you want a more stern reaction from them,so you keep getting more and more offensive until they get tired of responding to you and they simply block you.
Back during my trolling glory days,all i needed to know was your handle and i would come at you with all guns blazing.I did not care whether we were following each other or not or whether you were talking about me or not. If you were unlucky and you somehow landed on my radar of insults,you were getting all the ammo. I would troll people about literally anything,be it their sports team or the color of their hair on their avatar. I was constantly looking for that fix,an opportunity to offend someone.This habit went onto my late teens.I was known on Facebook and on Twitter as "that guy" and the attention i got as a result,which was exactly what i craved,made me even more dedicated to the trolling. I did not have much friends in real life but internet life was fun for troll Ephy,i had amassed quite a following on my social medias,and that made me feel rather good about myself. It allowed me to live the life that i wished i lived in real life. It afforded me the opportunity to be relevant, and to be able to say anything i wanted,to anyone i wanted and whenever i wanted.
Not once during my rather lengthy troll career did i ever stop and try to think about how i made people feel about themselves.It was all about me and how great being mean on the internet made me feel.And that is what basically internet trolls are,people whose real lives are so stale and miserable that they look for relevance on the internet by making other people feel bad themselves. People whose only source of happiness comes from likes,retweets and "dude you are so savage" comments. The internet,especially social medias, offers the perfect breeding ground for these type of characters because victims are in abundance. It is very easy to provoke a response from people on the internet and i figured this out when i was living that troll life.All you have to do is say something that a person does not like then boom,they take the bait,and the trolls wins.Its been about 3 years now since i "retired" from trolling and whenever i come across my old social media posts,i cringe. There was a time when i was even tempted to delete the old posts and then i thought,"nah,let me keep these to remind myself of how far i have come in this maturity thing".
So whenever you come across a troll on the internet and they try to bait you,do not fall for it.Do the one thing that they hate the most,deprive them of attention and watch them back off and crawl back into their cocoons of mediocrity.And if you are reading this and you are an internet troll,buddy,there is much more to life than being relevant on the internet. Get off that phone and actually live and trust me,it is way better than the troll life.
It all started back in 2010, when i made my first Facebook account. I was 15,at the prime of teenage-hood, which means i had all the energy and time in the world. My trolling started off small,with slight jabs i constantly threw at people's posts. My favorite back then used to be,"this is why Facebook needs a dislike button". I would post this under literally every post on my timeline,just to provoke a response and boy did the responses come,and the more they came,the more energized i got for more trolling.Because most of peers were not on Facebook then,as they were too busy actually living life,most of my Facebook friends were older people who,when i think about it now,i have no idea why they accepted my friendship request. It was very easy to solicit a response from the oldies,as i used to call them,and they took the bait every single time.I would wake up every morning,get on my phone and have one mission and one mission only ,to work up as many nerves as i possibly could,and i was very good and efficient at it.
The more annoyed responses i got from people,the better i felt about myself. Their annoyance was like pouring petrol on my adolescent ego fire,and the trolling just kept getting worse and worse. I decided to franchise it,moving my talents to Twitter,the troll's paradise. The thing my troll persona liked about Twitter was that,it offered a more direct and hence effective channel to trolling. Unlike with Facebook,i did not need to be your friend to tell you how much you suck. I would spend my days sending all kinds of abuse towards anyone who was anyone,celebrities and other Twitter users with no discrimination.The thing about trolling is that,it is like a drug.The more you do it,the more tolerance you build for it.For example,if you troll someone and it prompts a rather mellow reaction from them,as time goes on,you get bored and you want a more stern reaction from them,so you keep getting more and more offensive until they get tired of responding to you and they simply block you.
Back during my trolling glory days,all i needed to know was your handle and i would come at you with all guns blazing.I did not care whether we were following each other or not or whether you were talking about me or not. If you were unlucky and you somehow landed on my radar of insults,you were getting all the ammo. I would troll people about literally anything,be it their sports team or the color of their hair on their avatar. I was constantly looking for that fix,an opportunity to offend someone.This habit went onto my late teens.I was known on Facebook and on Twitter as "that guy" and the attention i got as a result,which was exactly what i craved,made me even more dedicated to the trolling. I did not have much friends in real life but internet life was fun for troll Ephy,i had amassed quite a following on my social medias,and that made me feel rather good about myself. It allowed me to live the life that i wished i lived in real life. It afforded me the opportunity to be relevant, and to be able to say anything i wanted,to anyone i wanted and whenever i wanted.
Not once during my rather lengthy troll career did i ever stop and try to think about how i made people feel about themselves.It was all about me and how great being mean on the internet made me feel.And that is what basically internet trolls are,people whose real lives are so stale and miserable that they look for relevance on the internet by making other people feel bad themselves. People whose only source of happiness comes from likes,retweets and "dude you are so savage" comments. The internet,especially social medias, offers the perfect breeding ground for these type of characters because victims are in abundance. It is very easy to provoke a response from people on the internet and i figured this out when i was living that troll life.All you have to do is say something that a person does not like then boom,they take the bait,and the trolls wins.Its been about 3 years now since i "retired" from trolling and whenever i come across my old social media posts,i cringe. There was a time when i was even tempted to delete the old posts and then i thought,"nah,let me keep these to remind myself of how far i have come in this maturity thing".
So whenever you come across a troll on the internet and they try to bait you,do not fall for it.Do the one thing that they hate the most,deprive them of attention and watch them back off and crawl back into their cocoons of mediocrity.And if you are reading this and you are an internet troll,buddy,there is much more to life than being relevant on the internet. Get off that phone and actually live and trust me,it is way better than the troll life.
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