I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I do not mind a troll. I mind a poor troll. I want to see some skill, some talent. I cut my teeth on some of the earliest troll pioneers, on Usenet, BBSs, and here. The best of them were devastating and brilliant. Sure, most flamed out quickly…the brightest troll burns twice as fast. But they were fun to engage with and watch.
FXM, when he’s on his game, shows flashes of that kind of trolly brilliance. Just flashes, but it keeps him enjoyable. watchwolf just kinda depresses me. I feel like he just doesn’t grok the concept of either serious discussion or serious trollery. He ends up a weak middle, not managing to really shine at either. I can’t really ask him to up his game, because he doesn’t really seem to understand what that means. He doesn’t have a feel for trolling, he’s just following FX’s lead. And it simply comes across as annoying at best, purely sycophantic the rest of the time.
Or in the immortal words of Rick Blaine: “I don’t mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.”