I have never understood why anyone would come to an internet forum with the intent of disrupting discussion and pissing people off. But that seems to be the goal of most trolls I have seen here and elsewhere. What motivates these people? Why do they get off by being jerks and irritating people?
Please enlighten me, Dopers, as I am at a loss 
What motivates them? Attention.
That’s basically it.
I imagine that some pleasure motives, or pleasure mechanisms, are simply the way they are - some people simply get a rise, or gratification, out of irritating people, especially if the audience is one that the troll opposes. It might be like trying to explain a cocaine kick to someone who has never done cocaine or is not interested in cocaine. Some people simply respond pleasurably to that. They also enjoy seeing people irritatedly having to explain the obvious or correct misconceptions.
I used to be a moderator on two message boards. On one message board, one poster’s MO was to intentionally slip a factual error into most of his posts - at least one intentional error per post. Some people take trolling to an art form, where you can tell they’re highly practiced.
IMHO, it’s just schadenfreude. The same way that millions of people around the world enjoyed seeing Brazil get demolished 7-1 by Germany in the World Cup - the satisfaction that many Brazil-disliking sports fans got out of that, was essentially the fun of seeing millions of Brazilians, in a sense, get “trolled.” Or all the videos on the Internet about Hillary supporters in tears on Election Night, or basically anything that provokes the misery or anger of people that the troll dislikes.
I have a confession to make.
I stumbled upon a pro-life website many years ago. I was offended, and became a “regular” for about two years. Started out trolling, but began to have respectful and productive debate as time went on.
ETA: I wasn’t seeking “attention,” but certainly wanted to irritate the “opposition.” To put it in perhaps a better light, I wanted them to see outside their bubble for a little while. It worked better when I engaged in a non-trollish manner
Dopamine. Any food for an addiction produces it in some quantity, whether it’s heroin or a ‘like’ on your Facebook post. If you love getting attention through disruption, then every time you do it, you get a shot of dopamine as a reward.
I think that the anonymity of the Internet is what drives troll behaviour. They can say nasty, hurtful things to people online that they likely wouldn’t say in real life to a real person. It’s an outlet where people can get their rocks off hurting others and not have to deal with real, physical consequences.
[my emphasis]
That’s precisely the rub tho, isn’t it? A true 100% pure grade-Z troll, by definition, has no actual opposing viewpoint, at all, per se; his (her) behavior is all driven solely by getting a rise/gaining the attention he seeks. I’ve been here 10 years now, and still cannot really tell the difference between an “authentic” troll (yea, had to go oxymoronic there) and a “true believer” whose writing and debating and critical thinking skills are simply poor or nonexistent. Poe’s Law as applied to trolls-surprised nobody has coined such for said dilemma, so I’ll try-call it DiFool’s Law:
[ul]
[li]It is impossible to create a purely trolling-motivated display of extreme or preposterous views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers or viewers as a sincere expression of the trolled viewpoints. [/li]
[li]Or vice-versa.[/li][/ul]
As in most aspects of human social behavior, “what can I get away with” is a critical factor. The world is full of people who obey the law because they don’t think they can get away with violating the law, and care about not being punished. Not the more abstract “good or evil” of a thing, or any kind of altruistic care for another human being.
The anonymity of the net changes that calculus, a lot. You can do things, some quite terrible, with impunity. So comparatively low-level anti-social behavior (trolling or bullying) has become almost de rigueur. “White-collar” criminal behavior seems to also be more prominently on-line, because poor on-line security means it’s not hard to obscure your identity.
I’m glad you learned. That gives me faith in people.
We have a few posters here, particularly in GD and Elections, that used to engage in that kind of behavior, but have changed. (I lurk an awful lot.) I now look forward to their posts, even if I don’t agree with them. I’m hoping some of the newer trollish posters learn that lesson instead of drive-by neener neener-ing. That or they go away.
But this is what vexes me: Why would any want negative attention? That seems contrary to human nature IMO.
It’s a joke to them.
The more negative the attention…(the more upset the person they trolled is), the funnier it is to them.
Positive or negative makes no difference. It’s the ‘fix’ that matters. The affects of dopamine are well-documented.
I have only ever trolled one group, the NRA, and I did it for one reason primarily, they wasted my time. They called me for their pledge drive on a no call list phone number- I have never in any way supported or affiliated with them. I kept the first lady on the phone for over an hour talking about how we needed to have bigger guns to shoot more of those people in less time, etc. It was the most stereotypical discussion I have ever had- I was amazed at how easy it was to get her to say the most obnoxious, xenophobic, and flatly racist things imaginable. After an hour of egging her on, I finally committed to a million dollar donation- which brought along a manager for confirmation. My credit cards “won’t go that high so can you send me the paperwork.” Several phone calls from them following up on why I hadn’t submitted all lasted 15+ minutes with questions that I needed to forwarded to my “accountants”. After many phone calls, they must have given up… until the next year, but they didn’t play the game very long that time with only two phone calls.
So I trolled because (1)they contacted me, (2)they admitted they just want to kill “other” people with their guns, (3) they wasted my time, and I ended up being more against the NRA the more they spoke and I was fairly ambivalent about their fringe movement which will be wiped under in another generation.
Part of it is the thrill of control. They’re basically saying ‘dance, monkey, dance’ and then sitting back to watch everyone react. They think of themselves as being in a position of power.
IMHO, for a lot of trolls, there is a certain “craftsman’s pride” in their “art.”
*Effective *trolling is actually quite difficult. It takes a considerable amount of skill. Any yahoo with a mouse and keyboard can type *“Osama bin Laden was a great man and it’s a pity that there weren’t more killed on 9/11, hurr hurr hurr.” * That’s elementary-school level trolling, and pretty much useless. But it takes *real *skill to *genuinely *get under people’s skin, especially if the audience is a fairly professional, educated or complex group of folks, such as that here on the SDMB.
I would hazard a guess that for trolls who really take their art seriously, skillful trolling is like picking a lock if you’re a burglar. You need to find just the right combination to break the lock, and it may take a great deal of thought, planning or research. Similarly, you have to find the right combination of words or actions to piss off an audience that you want to piss off. It’s not easy or simple, and I think that for a serious troll, when they finally do get the desired effect, it’s that same feeling of elation and pride that a hacker must feel when having hacked into a particularly ‘secure’ database.
That’s probably true. There might be 2 classifications of trolls:
Trolls that have a specific aim or target - i.e., wanting to troll pro-lifers or pro-choicers, or troll opposing sports fans, or opposing political views;
Trolls without much viewpoint, who are just like the “Some men just want to watch the world burn” type mentioned by Alfred the butler in The Dark Knight Rises. Chaos and mayhem *is *their reward; they like it, period.
Same reason kids with BB guns shoot at wasps’ nests.
An interesting story about a reformed troll:
TL;DR: obese guy trolls a bodybuilding forum, his “victims” help him lose weight and become healthy.
Our trolls never seem to be the crafty Ocean’s 11 caper type. More the “drive a stolen truck through the front window and get tased by the cops while trying to run off with a case of Twinkies” type.
I used to troll back in the early AOL message board days. I had about six accounts going at all times. I just liked to argue. It wasn’t just the attention. I loved to argue and best other people, especially about religion. I loved to pick at the Creationists. I was a Christian back then but really losing my faith and played it out by trolling as an atheist sometimes. But then I’d turn around and be Christian and lie to people about spiritual experiences I had. I don’t know what it was fulfilling in me but I saw it as nothing more than a game. It was just fun and I didn’t feel bad about it for years. When I got tired of playing I confessed to everyone. Some acted offended but the rest were cool about it and we’re now still friends on Facebook 20+ years later. I had a friend who trolled with me, but he was the kind who liked tossing out bombs. He loved shitstirring and pitting people against each other in our little groups. I guess he just grew out of it too.