Hey, you.

Yes, you. The one mouse hovering the title thread, fresh off the rush you just got from castigating some dickhead who had the temerity to buck your self-congratulatory consensus.

Admit it. You used the T-word.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a spineless pansy-ass liberal fuckwit who just can’t understand that the world is a bad place and sometimes some prospectless young shop-class ingenue has to lose a leg and be a posterchild for man’s inhumanity to man.

Or maybe you’re a god-fearing American, and Jesus told you in the bible that those faggots are doomed to a lake of fire, but as long as they’re here we should make them understand that they’re essentially Hitler but with AIDS. And also those brown people think they get to fuck virgins in Heaven (yeah right, God don’t have no truck with crazy dome churches or supply-side economics).

You might even be a pseudo-intellectual compensating for your life’s failures by pumping yourself up on an anonymous message board which gives you that sense of community you crave but are too much of a coward to reach for in real life, and instead patrol the mean streets of the internets in search of unrealized pedantry that you can breathe the spark of life into.

Whatever.

Either way, you called someone a troll. You don’t even know what troll means or where it came from. You’ve got some idea that it’s that guy, the one who has the crazy ideas about religion, or politics, or the nature of the space-time manifold. You can’t believe that this motherfucker is for reals, yo. What kind of totally incompetent braindead nub could hold those views? It’s Just. Not. Possible.

They deserve it. Call them a troll. It encapsulates all of your rage at having your worldview opposed, your utter disdain for the intellectual capacities of those who dare to disbelieve, and your fear and shock at having yet another fake community consensus-based circle jerk interrupted Full. Stop. like the internet equivalent of your mom walking into the room to see you with a feather duster protruding from your rectum, just as you blow your not-quite-Emeril-style essence all over the picture of Bea Arthur in last month’s copy of Redbook. (Alternatively, it could be your little brother busting open your door, accompanied by his entire soccer team, at the vital moment of your marathon Jewel CD, unicorn poster, bodice ripper tossed to the floor like the shredded remains of a fat woman’s chocolate wrapper, pillow humping “me time”.)

I understand your pain. There are a lot of utter fucking retards. Some are even right here on this board. They say stupid things, and worse, they mean them! It’s enough to make anyone crazy. But you, you smug bastard, you need to shut the fuck up with your cries of “Troll!” as shorthand for your own argumentative shortcomings. It’s doubly arrogant to pull out the T-word; you’re accusing them of saying stuff just to be disruptive, because it is inconceivable that someone could honestly disagree with the absolute platonic perfection of your outlook on the world.

You know what’s fucking annoying? A bunch of people hanging out in the pit, participating in the latest big fucking group hug – “A guy in line at the cafeteria was mean to me, let’s all post little testimonials about psycho rednecks so we can feel better about ourselves” or “Those fuckers who put the toilet paper roll in the wrong way, let’s commiserate, and like attendees of an AA meeting in the mission district, we’ll overcome together and turn it all around”.

Hell, we get these biscuit parties in the middle of actual debates. Sometimes, someone needs to step up and say what needs to be said, usually: “Quit whining, you inbred hemophiliac crybaby, and take it like a man or do what the other adults do, which is to drown your troubles in a bottle of cheap booze. Pardon me while I cry myself to sleep over my 6 figure student loan debt, as I don’t want to minimize the impact of you having to include your estranged mother’s frankly sub-median income on your FAFSA form.”

But it’s not until 5 or 6 of the usually moronic suspects step in to deliver their supposedly droll pronouncements of sentence that things take the turn. One by one, like a fat ponytailed army of acne-ridden GURPS players that wondered into the Adult Entertainment Expo by mistake, you step up to take your best shot. And the predictable result occurs: “I’m, like totally into GRUPS. If you buy Ass Pirates: the Quest for the Golden Booty, episodes 8 through 19, I’ll be able to afford a trip to Boise to play D&D with you while wearing an outfit that totally shows my boobs!” Cue sales. (Usually followed by sotto voce exhortations to one’s fellow mutants that one would not “hit that”, as she probably has a disease – yeah, and I am totally fucking turning down that Nobel Peace Prize next year.)

Well, maybe not. After all, your one-line troll accusations (always “served” with the classic pairings: go home, move out of your mom’s house, STFU, you’re worthless, you’re not really an X) don’t even have the ability to move last years porn titles and save a busty yet petite blonde from having to make that movie where she has to fuck a few ugly guys with small cocks just to keep the dream alive for the fans.

Nope, your little cries of “Troll!” are literary speedbumps. And when I say speedbumps, I’m actually using the slang term for herpes. Here’s a solution: either ignore these “trolls” or argue with them. Because your vague drive-by dismissals are doing nothing more but annoying others while you demonstrate that you can’t even hang with the J.V. when it comes to posting something other people want to read (I realize a lot of you actually do want to read affirmations of how right you are, but you douchebags are the subject of another, though related, post.)

Step up and put your tits on the anvil (I was going to say balls, but that might be sexist), or sit down and shut the fuck up, you troll-calling peanut-gallery goat ropers. If you can’t say something nice, say something fucking hideous. Or say something intelligent. But please, if you can’t come up with more than a one-liner about trolls, there’s no need to prove how smart you aren’t.

wut

wut indeed. And perhaps “lol wut?”

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?

Well, I’ll try, but my hands feel rather like balloons at the moment.

The thing is, although you make some good points, there really ARE trolls that exist here (in my opinion)

There is a difference between being an asshole or having very unpopular opinions and actually being someone who is posting just for the sake of hoping to get a rise out of other people, and yes, others do seem to easily either confuse the two or interchange them easily.
There are even, I would say, some posters who (I think) actually believe what they post but who also wouldn’t REALLY be the definition of a troll (if, by troll, you mean someone who purposefully posts just to stir people up).

But there really are people here who really do seem to post for the sheer purpose of either getting reactions or just to be dickheads (because they can?) in 99 percent of their posts.
Posters who, in most every post they make, actually do troll around and anyone with half a brain and who has seen or engaged in topics with these people would know it.
That being said, some people are falsely labeled with that name, you’re right. I can think of many examples, actually, of all three groups, and I’ll even name names.
It’s very easy…some people I would consider being in the first group (of people who are not really trolls but who I have seen either be accused or thought of as being a troll due to their unpopular opinions or posts) would be members like DtC, Shodan, Bricker, Mswas, Der Trihs, Rand Rover, and prr.

While I have nothing against any of the above, I do seem to observe them the subject of pit threads often, and having less than popular views sometimes. I think that some of the above, rather than trolls, are simply just raging assholes here and there…but the same can be said for anyone (including me).
And, of course, there are many more who may be an example of this but these were just the names that sprung to mind first.
The next group I mentioned–those who actually believe what they post or who may actually have various mental issues–have examples too, as are seen with threads and posts by Kanicbird and KGS (sometimes).

But then there are some posters who, if you have read most everything by them–any post, any topic, any display of writing on here–it’s usually obvious that they are a troll, plain and simple. Troll, however, is a very broad word. It must be given definition, I think…and if troll is defined as someone who trolls around (I.E. posts ideas and opinions that are not really their own just to cause ruckus in threads and get people riled up) then YES, I DO think there are posters here who really ARE trolls in that sense of the word. Some examples that spring to mind are curlcoat, brazil84, Fothergay-Phillips, and (most well known, possibly) Carol Stream.
There is no doubt in my mind that the above really are trolls if you define troll that way…and I very much doubt that anyone who has ever interacted with them in any thread can say otherwise.
So yeah, I do think most of the time the cry of the “T word” is unwarranted, probably even most of the time…but there are a few cases that really do have merit and just cause, I feel.

Similiar to your rant here, I could throw in the rant about how people always say “Don’t call people a troll just because you disagree with them or because they have unpopular opinions”…because some people are called trolls simply because they ARE, in fact, trolling.

Did you, the OP, have a question to ask, or do you want to make a speech?

On the substance of the OP (yes, there was some there, folks): I agree that accusations of “troll!” are stupid (being a frequent target of same). These things come if waves. “Liar” used to be popular, now it seems that “troll” and “sociopath” are the new words for someone the poster doesn’t like.

It’s not really specific. I’d say this would be a good candidate for the mini-rants thread.

Yes, I know how bizarre that suggestion sounds.

Can someone let me know if the whole thing is worth a read?

Does this look like GQ, you ignorant sod?

Iam not ignorant!
Wait a minute…

tldr

To be honest, I did scroll up just to make sure. And yes, speech.

Get off of my cloud!

I love you, man.

My own idea and opinion is that Idle Thoughts is a poopy-head.

Say what?

Well, the OP has quite the potty mouth, I’ll say that for him.

I was responding to your earlier post, thus:

Speech.

And I had to scroll up to make sure I had actually posted in the pit before I replied. Not to make sure you were ignorant.

Duh. What’s your point?

Well, I derived considerable enjoyment from this post. Some of the business about geeks and pornography conventions was too obtuse to make sense even after multiple read-through, but overall its worth the read.