I grew up pre-Internet so when I got on it in the 90s I mightily enjoyed finding Yanks on ICQ to “wind them up” about “losing Vietnam”. Very basic and low-level stuff.
Over the years I stopped doing it after getting bored.
But on Lemmy I’ve rediscovered the joys of sarcasm except I think it makes me a “troll”?
E.g.
“You’re the cancerous polyp up the rectum of life”
“People like you should be shot, piled high and tipped in the sea”
“This is the babbling nonsense of the brain damaged and insane”
As far as I’m concerned they’re blatantly obvious sarcasm and humour. BUT it’s SO much fun cos people take it seriously!! Some get downvoted to oblivion and others get deleted.
It’s great thinking up insults that are as way off the wall as possible and just seeing how people react.
I don’t want them to react negatively. I actually enjoy it when they give it back or at least realise you’re not being serious. But it’s also hilarious when they go off on a long rant to prove their point.
Am I a troll? Am I evil?
Plenty of time on your hands then 😂
Oh yes but in my defence laughter is medicine.
True! Anyway, I don’t think enjoying winding up the sticks in the mud on here is any bad thing. Wouldn’t worry about it mate, fill your boots.
It’s great thinking up insults that are as way off the wall as possible and just seeing how people react.
Troll.
Thank you. Does that also make me evil? It’s easy enough to just dismiss someone as a troll but do you see that it’s not that simple? I feel people need to chill out and not take life so seriously.
I am helping people. I give people a chance to self reflect on their baser instinct to “be offended”.
Yes. Maybe not Hitler-level evil, but there’s nothing commendable or useful in being a troll. No one besides you gets anything out of it. You’re doing it on purpose, and for your own gratification. You’re basically at the same moral level as a public masturbator.
You’re not evil. Your brain is miswired - broken, if you will. It’s not Hannibal Lecter style broken at this point, but that little surge of pleasure you get from inflicting pain means that your amygdala is feeding your reward system with the same pleasurable frisson most mentally normal people would get from giving a hungry person a sandwich. I’m not saying you necessarily need to consider medication or treatment, but it is characteristic of a disordered personality and very possibly reflective of a self-loathing that arises from you yourself having been abused. Abuse causes underdevelopment of the prefrontal cortex and overdevelopment of the amygdala such that the former can no longer efficiently govern the latter. This is fortunately treatable both medically and psychotherapeuticly.
Well, it’s not really trolling when its just a straight insult. It’s also not sarcasm to just insult someone.
Troll? No. Evil? No. An idiot? Well…
But I say it with a smile. With a light-hearted tone. It’s not my fault people take an obvious joke seriously. Granted they can’t see me smiling or hear my tone but maybe people need to stop taking things so seriously? It’s the internet. It’s not real life. If being called a vCJD-infected wilderbeast causes someone to get upset I have to say they’re the idiot - not me.
I think people have become too nesh. Wet. Baby pussy-willows with no moral fibre or sense of humour.
“It’s not my fault”
Uh huh. You bear absolutely no responsibility for those negative reactions you speak of.
You know what happens when someone insults me? I laugh. I don’t care. I think that’s the best way.
Does anything in the world ever get under your skin?
If yes, then extrapolate that feeling to these situations and try to understand that just because it doesn’t upset you, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t upset someone else.
If no, then I guess I envy your care free life but you’d do well to try and understand that not everyone is as lucky as you.
I should have realised you’re the rice milk drinker. You have a very typical ‘rice-milk attitude’.
Trolling is a art…
Trolling requires wit and making people laugh in my opinion. All while also riling someone up. This is how it used to be done and is an actual art form when done correctly. The “trolls” on Lemmy just pile on with buzz words and fake rage towards things. There’s never anything smart or funny in any of the “trolling” I see on here.
Evil for insulting people on the internet? No.
As your teachers would have told you at school there’s a difference between banter and bullying. If you’re actually having a bit of good-natured back-and-forth then that’s great! If you find that you’re just insulting people then suddenly you’re the prick.
I get where you’re coming from but it’s not like I insult people by saying “You’re a cunt”.
I say utterly absurd things like the above. How can you read “You’re the cancerous polyp up the rectum of life” and take that seriously? How can you read that and take offence?
The worlds turned soft. Maybe I’m a high-end troll? A kind of genius troll that’s just above the hub-bub of offence? I think I help people see the truth. With me people get a glimpse of the real world. A world where life is all just a game and nothing matters.
Brits like to say “we don’t need /s on comments in our subs” but in reality - you bloody well do! Cos you clearly take everything I say as serious.
What do you reckon?
Context is everything. You chat shit with your mates and the insults are obviously jokes. You call a random on the street a cancerous polyp on the rectum of life and you’re potentially getting your head kicked in. Do you post your comments on other jokey threads where witty banter is expected or do you pipe up randomly with unexpected jabs that just look try-hard and uncalled for?
Yikes
I’m glad we’re on the same page.
