"Trolling" is a neologism invented in the internet era, originally mainly to describe people who deliberately instigated online flamewars for their own amusement and self-gratification they get from getting a huge amount of reaction and responses to their activity.
Large-scale online discussion forum flamewars were extremely common especially in the 90's and early 2000's, often because of lack of any moderation and arbitration in completely free-for-all anything-goes usenet groups and other forms of online discussion forums. These flamewars often consisted of discussion threads that could span literally tens of thousands of messages by hundreds of people, with usually just a handful of pathological instigators and another handful of responders too stubborn to stop responding, with hundreds of other forum visitors dragged in for a while.
"Trolls" were people who liked to start and/or add fuel to the flamewar, often maliciously and purposefully, just to get a reaction and keep the flamewar going, often for their own amusement, or just because of the psychological gratification of getting reactions from a massive amount of people because of a few posts that take just a minute to write.
Somehow the terms "troll" and "trolling" have persisted to this day, and have raised in the public consciousness mainly thanks to the mainstream media and famous influencers, who have recently appropriated the term as yet another insult and ad-hominem to throw at anybody that disagrees with them or presents any form of criticism.
But putting that subject aside, I would posit that genuine trolls, even to this day, can be roughly categorized into two types: Malicious narcissistic trolls, and ignorant stubborn trolls.
The malicious narcissistic troll is the "classical" troll I described above: Somebody who deliberately (or sometimes serendipitously) causes controversy and disagreement in some kind of forum, discussion group or other such online group, just for his own personal amusement or gratification, just to get a big reaction and laugh at it. A form of online vandalism, if you will: Causing destruction in the form of in-fighting among a group that might otherwise be very amicable, for one's own amusement and gratification.
The "ignorant troll" is more complicated: It's someone who starts with legitimate criticism or concerns in all earnestness (but often in a quite naive and ignorant manner) who then unwittingly becomes a troll due to personal stubbornness and inability to accept having been in error.
Most commonly this happens when someone objects to something, criticizes something (or someone), or presents some kind of bold claim, and is genuinely misinformed, incorrect or wrong about it, not necessarily maliciously but out of ignorance, and then is both too stubborn to admit having made a mistake and accept the answers, and also feels a compulsive need to "be right" about it and thus feels a compulsive need to keep hammering on the subject (because he feels that stopping the conversation without getting the last word would be a concession, an admission of defeat and having been wrong.)
In some cases there may be some seed of truth in their original criticism or claim, but they either over-exaggerated it, misapplied it, or interpreted it way too harshly for the context in question, and then they become stubborningly unwilling to accept having gone too far or being in any kind of error.
If the person is pathologically stubborn and unwilling to admit having been in error, and to just get the last word in order to win some "I was right after all" points, and especially if he's somehow vocal and provocative enough, this may well end in a huge toxic flamewar, where the original genuinely and non-maliciously presented criticism of claim escalates to the point of insanity.
I have seen this happen in online forums many times. Perhaps way too many times.
Even these "unwitting trolls" can be roughly divided into two: The ones that take their original criticism or claim all the way to the bitter end, never wanting to give a single inch and never conceding anything, and those who clearly seem to understand having been wrong but are too stubborn to admit it, and instead they try to weasel themselves out of the pinch by wordplay and diversionary tactics. (For example, they may start twisting the meaning of what's being said, perhaps even what they originally "meant" by their original message. They may also try to divert and sidetrack the conversation away from the original topic by clinging to and highlighting any minor irrelevant detail they can find in the conversation, so as to try to direct the conversation as far as possible away from the original topic so that they don't have to admit having been originally wrong.)
Large-scale online discussion forum flamewars were extremely common especially in the 90's and early 2000's, often because of lack of any moderation and arbitration in completely free-for-all anything-goes usenet groups and other forms of online discussion forums. These flamewars often consisted of discussion threads that could span literally tens of thousands of messages by hundreds of people, with usually just a handful of pathological instigators and another handful of responders too stubborn to stop responding, with hundreds of other forum visitors dragged in for a while.
"Trolls" were people who liked to start and/or add fuel to the flamewar, often maliciously and purposefully, just to get a reaction and keep the flamewar going, often for their own amusement, or just because of the psychological gratification of getting reactions from a massive amount of people because of a few posts that take just a minute to write.
Somehow the terms "troll" and "trolling" have persisted to this day, and have raised in the public consciousness mainly thanks to the mainstream media and famous influencers, who have recently appropriated the term as yet another insult and ad-hominem to throw at anybody that disagrees with them or presents any form of criticism.
But putting that subject aside, I would posit that genuine trolls, even to this day, can be roughly categorized into two types: Malicious narcissistic trolls, and ignorant stubborn trolls.
The malicious narcissistic troll is the "classical" troll I described above: Somebody who deliberately (or sometimes serendipitously) causes controversy and disagreement in some kind of forum, discussion group or other such online group, just for his own personal amusement or gratification, just to get a big reaction and laugh at it. A form of online vandalism, if you will: Causing destruction in the form of in-fighting among a group that might otherwise be very amicable, for one's own amusement and gratification.
The "ignorant troll" is more complicated: It's someone who starts with legitimate criticism or concerns in all earnestness (but often in a quite naive and ignorant manner) who then unwittingly becomes a troll due to personal stubbornness and inability to accept having been in error.
Most commonly this happens when someone objects to something, criticizes something (or someone), or presents some kind of bold claim, and is genuinely misinformed, incorrect or wrong about it, not necessarily maliciously but out of ignorance, and then is both too stubborn to admit having made a mistake and accept the answers, and also feels a compulsive need to "be right" about it and thus feels a compulsive need to keep hammering on the subject (because he feels that stopping the conversation without getting the last word would be a concession, an admission of defeat and having been wrong.)
In some cases there may be some seed of truth in their original criticism or claim, but they either over-exaggerated it, misapplied it, or interpreted it way too harshly for the context in question, and then they become stubborningly unwilling to accept having gone too far or being in any kind of error.
If the person is pathologically stubborn and unwilling to admit having been in error, and to just get the last word in order to win some "I was right after all" points, and especially if he's somehow vocal and provocative enough, this may well end in a huge toxic flamewar, where the original genuinely and non-maliciously presented criticism of claim escalates to the point of insanity.
I have seen this happen in online forums many times. Perhaps way too many times.
Even these "unwitting trolls" can be roughly divided into two: The ones that take their original criticism or claim all the way to the bitter end, never wanting to give a single inch and never conceding anything, and those who clearly seem to understand having been wrong but are too stubborn to admit it, and instead they try to weasel themselves out of the pinch by wordplay and diversionary tactics. (For example, they may start twisting the meaning of what's being said, perhaps even what they originally "meant" by their original message. They may also try to divert and sidetrack the conversation away from the original topic by clinging to and highlighting any minor irrelevant detail they can find in the conversation, so as to try to direct the conversation as far as possible away from the original topic so that they don't have to admit having been originally wrong.)
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