Strazdas said:
medv4380 said:
That's not how language works. If a lot of people are "mislabeling" a word then you're the one mislabeling the word. Not them. Language is one of the most democratic processes known to man. The definition of a word is always majority rule. I'd point you to the urban dictionary, but google works just as well.
Trolling Definition 2
"submit a deliberately provocative posting to an online message board with the aim of inciting an angry response."
The top Urban Dictionary definition also is similar, but credits the internet which is what the article was about.
This is true and i understand your point. The problem arrises when language change happens quickly. For example everyone uses one definition of the word. then few people decided to use it differently. then suddenly in a few years time almost everyone started using it differently. People who were using it before now feels like shit because they have to re-learn language.
This is especially hitting home when the word that used to describe you now describes a completely different demography and you are just lumped with them because of that word.
Now you understand how my mother feels. Her middle name is Gay, and her parents were defiantly conservative religious types so it wasn't some hippy nonsense.
As for the word Trolling you should expect it to change rapidly. It's describing an activity that most people were unfamiliar with, and accurately describing all the nuanced variation can't be held in a single word. The current general description works best because now you just have to append an adjective to get the more subtle variations.
Outside of political circles, most of the worlds first acknowledged experience with trolling was with Andy Kaufman. I'd also argue that one mans comedian is another mans troll. If you watch The Daily Show it's hard to make the claim that John, and Colbert aren't regularly trolling the RNC. However, the most accepted form of Trolling is when you're trolling yourself or your "group" which is why Jews can get away with saying the most Anti-semetic Jew jokes, and Blacks can get away with saying the most vile racist black jokes. These would be Funny Trolls, or in Andy's case the Andy Troll. Arguable Andy made more people angry then he ever made people laugh, but that's what happens when your audience is just yourself.
Political Trolls are fairly common throughout history. Opposing political parties always want to say something that will make someone made because it can, when successful like when Al Gore got Bill Bradly angry, destroy your opponent.
Atheist Trolls, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Anton Levi Satanism, only exist and call themselves what they do to make Christians mad. Nativity scenes with a flying spaghetti monster and a Santa skeleton on a cross. I'm sure Atheist think it's funny, and I'm sure Christians just get mad.
Christian Trolls, harder to pinpoint, but the in-your-face "your going to hell" street side preaching is usually done just so they can get hit so they can "claim" that they are oppressed. Protestants and Catholics Trolls also like to Troll each other. After all it gives their social group a good laugh, and the group they dislike a bit of unbridled anger.
Gamer Trolls, the system wars have always had their share of Trolls.
The general definition makes understanding the problem far easier. The more specific definition hides the meaning, and makes people believe that the Internet makes people evil. When in reality it just makes their evil actions say in the spot light. In the real world you can just Ignore the troll, turn off their mic, or move along. On the internet it says visible until it's forcibly removed. Which increases it's effect size several magnitude when compared to the real world.
