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Troll - Shane Koyczan

Posted: January 18th, 2015, 7:47 pm
by ElectroYoshi
I'll let the mods decide if this belongs here or in OT.

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This is a poem about trolling. I decided to share it here because it provides the perfect counterargument to something I hear way too often from people trying to justify trolling: That there's a difference between trolling and cyberbullying. This mindset needs to die. At first there was a difference, but now that cyberbullies hide behind the guise of trolling, there is little use in trying to separate the two. I could go on and on about that, but I think it's only fair to let this poem speak for itself.

Discuss.

Posted: January 18th, 2015, 10:33 pm
by zardini001
This is beautiful.

But the whole poem is a bit aggressive against trolls. The point of trolling is to be silly. The point of cyberbullying is to make someone else feel absolutely horrible over the internet to make the bully feel good. I can see why people can mix them up, because the two, trolling and cyberbullying can tend to mix.

Posted: January 18th, 2015, 11:21 pm
by ElectroYoshi
zardini001 wrote:This is beautiful.

But the whole poem is a bit aggressive against trolls. The point of trolling is to be silly. The point of cyberbullying is to make someone else feel absolutely horrible over the internet to make the bully feel good. I can see why people can mix them up, because the two, trolling and cyberbullying can tend to mix.
That's the main issue, is the thing. This poem was just published last September (I think), and trolling started LONG before then. Back when it was a new development, the line between trolling and cyber-bullying was pretty obvious. Like you said, trolling is generally seen as more lighthearted. But here's the thing: Cyberbullies use "I was just trolling" as an excuse to try and get out of the repercussions for their actions. As more and more cyberbullies start busting out that excuse to defend themselves, the line between trolling and cyberbullying gets thinner and thinner. The heart of the issue is that in a lot of ways, the two have become intertwined, because of people using trolling as a cover-up.

Also, trolls already push the envelope pretty far with respect to what is and is not acceptable, which more often than not does lead to trolling going too far and morphing into bullying.