Doomsday. AKA The day when OTHER people see my "writings" fit to be put on their website. It's here. A little something I wrote for someone else's blog. The published version is available here: http://www.ideasevolved.com/game-of-trolls/
Facebook. Orkut. Twitter.
Bana lo social life better!
Dammit, still can’t get that idiotic song out of my head. Let’s try that again, shall we?
Facebook. Orkut. Twitter.
These are the tools that have led the social media revolution, the instruments of change that are responsible for bringing people even closer together than we already are. And we’re already pretty close, as is. Trust me, I’ve travelled in W-11. If you have use Facebook, you’ve probably been added by someone you haven’t met in years, at least once. If you use Twitter, you’ve probably talked about some international news, mostly sports, with someone in the other corner of the world. If you use Orkut, please get help. And try to get institutionalized.
The common thing with these websites and others like them is the rise of anonymity. Sure, most people on Facebook use their real names, but for every Umar Ahmed out there, there’s a “$Prince Lovely$ ” right around the corner. And that anonymity has turned every average joe into Batman. Before the boom, airing your grievances on a public forum about the alleged evils of political parties meant the jiyales of such political parties making sure that you slept with the fishes. Now, behind the thick veil of anonymity, you can tell any member of any political party what they have instead of brains and where they should put that something. And then proceed to get your IP traced by those very same jiyales who then commence with the fish+you+sleeping/together program regardless. See, progress!
What I find most interesting about the social media boom is that it’s given everyone a voice. But that brings forth a most interesting question. Does everyone even deserve a voice? This brings me to the topic of my piece: The rise of the troll!
The interwbs define a troll as (1) a mythical, cave-dwelling being typically having a very ugly appearance, (2) someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages in a community to provoke readers; and (3) people who edit the “Coming Up” videos on Indian reality shows.
Okay, maybe not that last one.
Facebook. Orkut. Twitter.
Bana lo social life better!
Dammit, still can’t get that idiotic song out of my head. Let’s try that again, shall we?
Facebook. Orkut. Twitter.
These are the tools that have led the social media revolution, the instruments of change that are responsible for bringing people even closer together than we already are. And we’re already pretty close, as is. Trust me, I’ve travelled in W-11. If you have use Facebook, you’ve probably been added by someone you haven’t met in years, at least once. If you use Twitter, you’ve probably talked about some international news, mostly sports, with someone in the other corner of the world. If you use Orkut, please get help. And try to get institutionalized.
The common thing with these websites and others like them is the rise of anonymity. Sure, most people on Facebook use their real names, but for every Umar Ahmed out there, there’s a “$Prince Lovely$ ” right around the corner. And that anonymity has turned every average joe into Batman. Before the boom, airing your grievances on a public forum about the alleged evils of political parties meant the jiyales of such political parties making sure that you slept with the fishes. Now, behind the thick veil of anonymity, you can tell any member of any political party what they have instead of brains and where they should put that something. And then proceed to get your IP traced by those very same jiyales who then commence with the fish+you+sleeping/together program regardless. See, progress!
What I find most interesting about the social media boom is that it’s given everyone a voice. But that brings forth a most interesting question. Does everyone even deserve a voice? This brings me to the topic of my piece: The rise of the troll!
The interwbs define a troll as (1) a mythical, cave-dwelling being typically having a very ugly appearance, (2) someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages in a community to provoke readers; and (3) people who edit the “Coming Up” videos on Indian reality shows.
Okay, maybe not that last one.
The trollface is now, of course, the official symbol of the internet, beating stiff competition from “The LOLcat” and the perpetually popular “Middle finger”.
See now, trolling can be anything. See the Youtube video where an alligator tries to eat a baby but keeps fumbling and get the urge to comment, “Stop torturing him! Just feed him the baby already!”? That’s a troll. Want to be classy and point out that your friend, while uploading a photo on Facebook with his dog has added an extra “N” to the caption, “Best dog in the world”? That’s an even better troll. Or you can even be like Suresh Raina and take a catch in the middle of a cricket match and then turn around to make the “shushhh” gesture towards the audience. Trollific troll! And this marks the first time in the past five years that “Suresh Raina” and the word “classy” have been said in the same paragraph.
I, for one, am not a troll. That’s not me. No sir. I don’t make it a point to correct other people’s spelling mistakes on Facebook. After all, what is it to me if someone can’t differentiate between “their”, “they’re” and “there”? Absolutely nothing. I just tell them that I’d come to their house when they’re asleep and light their house on fire and be on my way. And I use the correct spellings for their/they’re/there. Obviously.
There is, however, a kind of trolling worse than being a grammar Nazi. And no, I’m not talking about Hero TV asking to be considered as a serious TV channel. It’s the kind that’s populating Facebook these days. Yes, you know what I’m talking about. Gone are the days when people would just “like” a million pages and call it a day, gone are the exceedingly creepy status updates that make you go “Why the hell would I want to know that?!”, and gone are the requests from applications like Farmville….KIDDING! You’ll never be rid of Farmville requests, so swears Zynga! See, trolling.
Anyways, their spot has been taken by (a) memes from the darkest depths of hell, (b) the sports-trolls which I assume must be funny since they’re so helpfully captioned with the mighty trollface, which is apparently a reassurance of some kind we’re only being served with the troll of the highest calibre, and (c) “tips” regarding all sorts of fun activities like being a “maila” or being a “bro” because these are apparently things that people want to be, which only just adds to my belief that the Mayans have it right.
Of course, some may say that I’m being too harsh on them ol’ Forever Alones, and that they deserve a chance to laugh and that I’m missing out on the subtlety of the joke and that I should look beneath the exterior to see what the person is really saying.
I, for one, am not a troll. That’s not me. No sir. I don’t make it a point to correct other people’s spelling mistakes on Facebook. After all, what is it to me if someone can’t differentiate between “their”, “they’re” and “there”? Absolutely nothing. I just tell them that I’d come to their house when they’re asleep and light their house on fire and be on my way. And I use the correct spellings for their/they’re/there. Obviously.
There is, however, a kind of trolling worse than being a grammar Nazi. And no, I’m not talking about Hero TV asking to be considered as a serious TV channel. It’s the kind that’s populating Facebook these days. Yes, you know what I’m talking about. Gone are the days when people would just “like” a million pages and call it a day, gone are the exceedingly creepy status updates that make you go “Why the hell would I want to know that?!”, and gone are the requests from applications like Farmville….KIDDING! You’ll never be rid of Farmville requests, so swears Zynga! See, trolling.
Anyways, their spot has been taken by (a) memes from the darkest depths of hell, (b) the sports-trolls which I assume must be funny since they’re so helpfully captioned with the mighty trollface, which is apparently a reassurance of some kind we’re only being served with the troll of the highest calibre, and (c) “tips” regarding all sorts of fun activities like being a “maila” or being a “bro” because these are apparently things that people want to be, which only just adds to my belief that the Mayans have it right.
Of course, some may say that I’m being too harsh on them ol’ Forever Alones, and that they deserve a chance to laugh and that I’m missing out on the subtlety of the joke and that I should look beneath the exterior to see what the person is really saying.
“See, it’s like, a glass of water, and it’s on top of a MARS BAR! It’s like there’s water on Mars! See? Get it? SEE? GET IT? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, my parents didn’t love me enough as a child.”
Yup. Subtle.
Of course, it’s not totally hopeless. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And it can be summed up in three simple words: It’s. A. Fad.
It’ll pass. That’s how fads work. One day you feel passionately about a certain something, the next day, you couldn’t care less about it. It’s the only way you can explain Gangnam Style’s success. We thought the “I KNOW! I’LL TAG ALL MY FRIENDS IN THIS PHOTO EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE NOT IN IT!” thing would never stop, but it didn’t last. The day of the troll will pass and that’s the only thing that keeps me clicking “Log In” each time.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if one day everyone wakes up and logs on to Facebook to see that the memes and the trolls and the endless photo sharing of choclate based desserts and flowers are now a thing of the past and that we’re due for yet another new fad? And then one day, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get back to using social networking for posting actual sensible content from our lives.
Now that would be a troll for the ages!
Of course, it’s not totally hopeless. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And it can be summed up in three simple words: It’s. A. Fad.
It’ll pass. That’s how fads work. One day you feel passionately about a certain something, the next day, you couldn’t care less about it. It’s the only way you can explain Gangnam Style’s success. We thought the “I KNOW! I’LL TAG ALL MY FRIENDS IN THIS PHOTO EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE NOT IN IT!” thing would never stop, but it didn’t last. The day of the troll will pass and that’s the only thing that keeps me clicking “Log In” each time.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if one day everyone wakes up and logs on to Facebook to see that the memes and the trolls and the endless photo sharing of choclate based desserts and flowers are now a thing of the past and that we’re due for yet another new fad? And then one day, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get back to using social networking for posting actual sensible content from our lives.
Now that would be a troll for the ages!
Umar Ahmed appreciates the finer things in life. Like video mash-ups of every zombie kill in every zombie movie ever. He also would have been extremely upset by "them" editing out his ingenious and totally-not-ripped-off-from-some-dark-corner-of-the-internet "About the Author" bit, but a new episode of The Walking Dead was out. Maybe later. He also should stop doing those bits.
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