Are NON-ABUSIVE TROLLS an endangered species?
#LetsTalkAboutTrolls
Recently Twitter saw this hashtag make it up to the top four trends. Thanks to Sonu Nigam controversy that this hashtag lost its value in the wake of people defending loudspeakers. I hope had the controversy not started, these ramshackled people who call themselves the victims of trolls would have seen the reality of their own existence. Anyways, the Sonu controversy met it’s fate just like any other controversy within two days and the game was done for after Sonu trolled the Maulvi and asked him to keep the fatwa money ready (Big LOL there). But, the controversy that never ends on Twitter is the existence of trolls, their activities, their popularity amongst politicians/celebrities and the growing fandom that they enjoy.
According to www.dictionary.com the word Troll means –
“To post inflammatory or inappropriate messages or comments (on the Internet, especially a message board) for the purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response.”
Now that the digital meaning of the word is clear to us, lets talk in brief about its evolution. As per Scandinavian folklore troll is referred to a giant or a demon. It was later used by the U.S army during Vietnam war as ‘trolling for MiGs’ or in laymen tongue ‘a decoy’. The actual use of the word Troll came into fad (as copied from Wikipedia and edited accordingly) during the 90’s where it commonly meant a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. Long-time readers would both recognize the question and know that the topic had been discussed a lot, but new subscribers to the group would not realize, and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a practice to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION.
By the late, more people got into the activity and the newbies felt insulted and thus the term started to get frowned upon by many. The intention was to bring humour and not to insult anyone much like what wit and sarcasm does on a combined scale. So basically the concerned word traversed it’s path from being a reference to demons to decoy to fun to rabble rousers. We have seen the word change its form over time and it is understandable because everything evolves with time. Every new word that comes up or the old word that we constantly use, get a new meaning with every change in the reference and the environment to which it was subjected and the reference in which it is used. The much hated ‘N’ word of all times is used in reference to ‘a friend’ in the modern terminology. Now how did that come into be? It happened over time, with people shedding their narrow views and accepting the better part of it. Such is the case with trolls too.
Twitter is the most populated social media platforms in the world which is filled with trolls to the brim. Many of them are actually just abusers who are hiding in the veil of anonymity to save themselves from getting insulted. 90% of modern trolls are just ganging up on one person and abusing the heck out of him/her. But, I am not here to talk about these goons. I want to talk about the real trolls, the guys who are pushing the envelope to bring the trolls to media limelight in a legit and civic manner. They do not abuse anyone, they don’t gang up on anyone, they don’t fight. These people simply present their thoughts with a tinge of wit,sarcasm and humour much of which is hated by the guys who are opposed by them on various issues. Be it politics, general knowledge, sports, journalism, or any other field, these people have spread their roots so deep into the social media, learning and analyzing, that now they outperform the ill logics of potent leaders/journalists with their humour and logic. It doesn’t matter which ideology they support, which political party they vote for, which IPL team they love, if you are on the wrong side of the logic, you are done for dear friend. Most morbid of things came into light when well known journalists (known for their secular and intellectual nature) started abusing people to reciprocate a response (wondering who are those 90% abusive trolls).
Now Trolls are of two categories :
1) Abusive
2) Non-abusive i.e the ones advocating wit and humour.
Many of you might want to put up a stance that there is no categorization possible, trolls are just trolls…! For that I would like to rebuttal with the famous phrase, “There is no religion of terrorism” when all the attacks are being carried by Islamists. I hope you get my point and not mislead the statement. Even if you do mis-represent it, may Allah be with you and give you angels that are promised to you.
The earlier category of trolls get bashing by everyone over the fact that they are prying too much into the privacy of people, indulging into non sensical debates and abuses, how can we forget that. Whereas, the latter ones are just exposing the hypocrisy and mistakes of people in a fun manner. Now some of these people get offended at being corrected/exposed while some take it sportingly, which is a good thing to do. Most common example of this is floating on Twitter, the mass of people, which supports and cheers these trolls. Sadly, journos do not fall in synergy with the common folks’ horizon and they see these trolls as supporters of a political party which is ‘saffronising the country’ as they like to say it. Ludicrous is the fact that all these sane trolls are in support of that party just like the mass and the journos are the anti-you-know-which-party crusaders (or the saviours of secularity of our nation). I sometimes wonder if the renowned fictional journalist Bajdeep Gharseaayi thinks himself and his clan of journos as Yoda & the Jedi’s and you-know-which-party & it’s supporters as Darth Vader & the Stormtroopers from the Star Wars franchise. I guess I just murdered the term ‘Similie’ a thousand times when I considered Bajdeep as Yoda (ROFL’ing).
Then there are those abusive trolls again. I know it’s horrible to see an unknown person disrespect and abuse you. It’s a feeling that is very unsettling and mentally hard to accept. What could have you possibly done to get such response from people, but then what could have that guy possibly done whom you mis-represented in public forums (and got slapped once in a while). I am not supporting the abuse you people get but atleast you should not condemn the valid point makers into the category of abusive trolls. Much of what you can do to avoid getting abused by random people is to present well researched work and not just the rumours running around you, which is actually the case with most of you in the profession of journalism. Garnering the support of people by misleading them into hating a person to much greater heights is what you people do nowadays and then you have the audacity to tag people with the noun ‘Trolls’ who expose your gimmicks. As a human being you people are very much allowed to form a perception about certain person(s) in your private life but when you are in your professional capacity as a journalist, you need to take a neutral stand towards things. A lie should be broadcasted as a lie, while the truth as truth. In case, you try to doctor the truth into a fake lie, you pay with your lost respect amongst the mass. You discredit your profession and your colleagues.
Just ponder over a thought, had you done your work with honesty and without bias just like the Police Departments (laughs softly) there wouldn’t have been possible a way for these trolls to come into existence on Twitter in the first place. They are there because of you folks, because of your mis-represented facts and profiles. You are their creators, you are the shoulders that will bear their weight.
Change is never well accepted in our society. There are some people trying hard, draining their brains just to make their stand a lot funnier so that they do not hurt anyone’s sentiments and also convey their point, but the sassy cool journos can’t stand it. How can anyone else be better than them at the job that they were supposed to do? So, as a last resort measure they kidnapped the word ‘Troll’ from the Internet and assigned it to these people. After this, many of them accepted themselves as trolls just with a definition of their own which speaks of targeted humour and not abuse. Now again the journos weren’t able to stand the fact that the trolls they gave birth to actually took pride in being called so. Now what next? A killer idea of labelling them as trolls who are harassers in nature and form (“Okay now we finally labelled them as someone which will haunt them forever”, I heard a fictional journo named Khana Khaiyub say it, in my mind)
#LetsTalkAboutTrolls was an initiative taken by Hindustan Times to let people come out with their stories of getting abused by the abusive trolls over the Internet. Many journos retweeted their tweets wherein they mentioned the harassment and abuses they have faced in times gone by, which was very gory and should be condemned by everyone. It doesn’t matter if you mutually share the ideology or not, if someone has been wronged then people should do right by them. The hashtag went viral when some of the top followed non abusive trolls started sharing the hashtag with screenshots of how renowned journalists have abused people in Direct Messages to avoid any kind of public reaction. Some of them took jab at Mr. Arvind Kejriwal with the hashtag while attaching his tweets that were disrespectful to our PM Mr. Narendra Modi Ji. At the end of the day the hashtag took a turnaround and moulded itself into a vocal wrestling ground between the supporters of various political parties and ideologies. In time came the Sonu Nigam’s loudspeaker controversy and the wrestling was postponed for sometime. But as we all know Twitter never rests, they is always a controversy cooking up in the backstage and when the time is right it takes the centre stage. With new controversy coming up everyday, tweeples wait for that one controversy that will take home the cake.
Recently Twitter saw this hashtag make it up to the top four trends. Thanks to Sonu Nigam controversy that this hashtag lost its value in the wake of people defending loudspeakers. I hope had the controversy not started, these ramshackled people who call themselves the victims of trolls would have seen the reality of their own existence. Anyways, the Sonu controversy met it’s fate just like any other controversy within two days and the game was done for after Sonu trolled the Maulvi and asked him to keep the fatwa money ready (Big LOL there). But, the controversy that never ends on Twitter is the existence of trolls, their activities, their popularity amongst politicians/celebrities and the growing fandom that they enjoy.
According to www.dictionary.com the word Troll means –
“To post inflammatory or inappropriate messages or comments (on the Internet, especially a message board) for the purpose of upsetting other users and provoking a response.”
Now that the digital meaning of the word is clear to us, lets talk in brief about its evolution. As per Scandinavian folklore troll is referred to a giant or a demon. It was later used by the U.S army during Vietnam war as ‘trolling for MiGs’ or in laymen tongue ‘a decoy’. The actual use of the word Troll came into fad (as copied from Wikipedia and edited accordingly) during the 90’s where it commonly meant a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone that only a new user would respond to them earnestly. Long-time readers would both recognize the question and know that the topic had been discussed a lot, but new subscribers to the group would not realize, and would thus respond. These types of trolls served as a practice to identify group insiders. This definition of trolling, considerably narrower than the modern understanding of the term, was considered a POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION.
By the late, more people got into the activity and the newbies felt insulted and thus the term started to get frowned upon by many. The intention was to bring humour and not to insult anyone much like what wit and sarcasm does on a combined scale. So basically the concerned word traversed it’s path from being a reference to demons to decoy to fun to rabble rousers. We have seen the word change its form over time and it is understandable because everything evolves with time. Every new word that comes up or the old word that we constantly use, get a new meaning with every change in the reference and the environment to which it was subjected and the reference in which it is used. The much hated ‘N’ word of all times is used in reference to ‘a friend’ in the modern terminology. Now how did that come into be? It happened over time, with people shedding their narrow views and accepting the better part of it. Such is the case with trolls too.
Twitter is the most populated social media platforms in the world which is filled with trolls to the brim. Many of them are actually just abusers who are hiding in the veil of anonymity to save themselves from getting insulted. 90% of modern trolls are just ganging up on one person and abusing the heck out of him/her. But, I am not here to talk about these goons. I want to talk about the real trolls, the guys who are pushing the envelope to bring the trolls to media limelight in a legit and civic manner. They do not abuse anyone, they don’t gang up on anyone, they don’t fight. These people simply present their thoughts with a tinge of wit,sarcasm and humour much of which is hated by the guys who are opposed by them on various issues. Be it politics, general knowledge, sports, journalism, or any other field, these people have spread their roots so deep into the social media, learning and analyzing, that now they outperform the ill logics of potent leaders/journalists with their humour and logic. It doesn’t matter which ideology they support, which political party they vote for, which IPL team they love, if you are on the wrong side of the logic, you are done for dear friend. Most morbid of things came into light when well known journalists (known for their secular and intellectual nature) started abusing people to reciprocate a response (wondering who are those 90% abusive trolls).
Now Trolls are of two categories :
1) Abusive
2) Non-abusive i.e the ones advocating wit and humour.
Many of you might want to put up a stance that there is no categorization possible, trolls are just trolls…! For that I would like to rebuttal with the famous phrase, “There is no religion of terrorism” when all the attacks are being carried by Islamists. I hope you get my point and not mislead the statement. Even if you do mis-represent it, may Allah be with you and give you angels that are promised to you.
The earlier category of trolls get bashing by everyone over the fact that they are prying too much into the privacy of people, indulging into non sensical debates and abuses, how can we forget that. Whereas, the latter ones are just exposing the hypocrisy and mistakes of people in a fun manner. Now some of these people get offended at being corrected/exposed while some take it sportingly, which is a good thing to do. Most common example of this is floating on Twitter, the mass of people, which supports and cheers these trolls. Sadly, journos do not fall in synergy with the common folks’ horizon and they see these trolls as supporters of a political party which is ‘saffronising the country’ as they like to say it. Ludicrous is the fact that all these sane trolls are in support of that party just like the mass and the journos are the anti-you-know-which-party crusaders (or the saviours of secularity of our nation). I sometimes wonder if the renowned fictional journalist Bajdeep Gharseaayi thinks himself and his clan of journos as Yoda & the Jedi’s and you-know-which-party & it’s supporters as Darth Vader & the Stormtroopers from the Star Wars franchise. I guess I just murdered the term ‘Similie’ a thousand times when I considered Bajdeep as Yoda (ROFL’ing).
Then there are those abusive trolls again. I know it’s horrible to see an unknown person disrespect and abuse you. It’s a feeling that is very unsettling and mentally hard to accept. What could have you possibly done to get such response from people, but then what could have that guy possibly done whom you mis-represented in public forums (and got slapped once in a while). I am not supporting the abuse you people get but atleast you should not condemn the valid point makers into the category of abusive trolls. Much of what you can do to avoid getting abused by random people is to present well researched work and not just the rumours running around you, which is actually the case with most of you in the profession of journalism. Garnering the support of people by misleading them into hating a person to much greater heights is what you people do nowadays and then you have the audacity to tag people with the noun ‘Trolls’ who expose your gimmicks. As a human being you people are very much allowed to form a perception about certain person(s) in your private life but when you are in your professional capacity as a journalist, you need to take a neutral stand towards things. A lie should be broadcasted as a lie, while the truth as truth. In case, you try to doctor the truth into a fake lie, you pay with your lost respect amongst the mass. You discredit your profession and your colleagues.
Just ponder over a thought, had you done your work with honesty and without bias just like the Police Departments (laughs softly) there wouldn’t have been possible a way for these trolls to come into existence on Twitter in the first place. They are there because of you folks, because of your mis-represented facts and profiles. You are their creators, you are the shoulders that will bear their weight.
Change is never well accepted in our society. There are some people trying hard, draining their brains just to make their stand a lot funnier so that they do not hurt anyone’s sentiments and also convey their point, but the sassy cool journos can’t stand it. How can anyone else be better than them at the job that they were supposed to do? So, as a last resort measure they kidnapped the word ‘Troll’ from the Internet and assigned it to these people. After this, many of them accepted themselves as trolls just with a definition of their own which speaks of targeted humour and not abuse. Now again the journos weren’t able to stand the fact that the trolls they gave birth to actually took pride in being called so. Now what next? A killer idea of labelling them as trolls who are harassers in nature and form (“Okay now we finally labelled them as someone which will haunt them forever”, I heard a fictional journo named Khana Khaiyub say it, in my mind)
#LetsTalkAboutTrolls was an initiative taken by Hindustan Times to let people come out with their stories of getting abused by the abusive trolls over the Internet. Many journos retweeted their tweets wherein they mentioned the harassment and abuses they have faced in times gone by, which was very gory and should be condemned by everyone. It doesn’t matter if you mutually share the ideology or not, if someone has been wronged then people should do right by them. The hashtag went viral when some of the top followed non abusive trolls started sharing the hashtag with screenshots of how renowned journalists have abused people in Direct Messages to avoid any kind of public reaction. Some of them took jab at Mr. Arvind Kejriwal with the hashtag while attaching his tweets that were disrespectful to our PM Mr. Narendra Modi Ji. At the end of the day the hashtag took a turnaround and moulded itself into a vocal wrestling ground between the supporters of various political parties and ideologies. In time came the Sonu Nigam’s loudspeaker controversy and the wrestling was postponed for sometime. But as we all know Twitter never rests, they is always a controversy cooking up in the backstage and when the time is right it takes the centre stage. With new controversy coming up everyday, tweeples wait for that one controversy that will take home the cake.
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