# What, exactly, is trolling? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 7, 2022, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390 "2022-01-07T19:25:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/41 "2022-01-09T19:45:29Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Right wingers posting in left wing news groups, and vice versa, would be a perfect example. Like the SDMB? 🙂 This definition is too broad, IMHO, and it allows one to accuse his debate opponents of trolling because the opponent Just Doesn’t Get It!! ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/42 "2022-01-09T20:04:08Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I think he emphasized that the former president had lost the election. Yes, of course he did. What do you think the Jan 6 insurrectionists were rioting about, if not about the lie that Trump didn’t lose the election? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/43 "2022-01-09T20:26:55Z")
Going back to the Biden never actually saying “loser” bit, he did not say it in his speech, but for the next two days multiple commenters at media outlets like CNN and NPR repeatedly alluded to _“the President/Speaker referred to the unprecedented case of the loser of the election trying to overturn it”_ or something like that, thus making it sound that way to those who fail to notice it was not a direct quote. As to what he was doing, no, it’s not “trolling”. As mentioned, it is classic political rhetoric: get your message out and lay down that the other guy is wrong and bad, _without_ being openly rude or demeaning. Gotta agree with what was mentioned above, that in _general terms_, you can have a “sincere” troll insofar as you may have someone who truly holds the belief that is offending others, but is _ **consciously** _ expressing it such a manner as to “derail, disrupt and aggravate” other participants into losing their patience and breaking rules first, or throwing their hands up and quitting so he can claim victory. However, AIUI in the special case of the SDMB environment, the bannable offense (that you should not gratuituously accuse people of) has the specific elements of _fundamental_ insincerity and of _having the disruption itself be the end purpose_ – so it has a major component of violating the “don’t be a jerk” rule. This way it stops short of dragging it mere poor debaters, the simply pigheaded(\*), and those who just can’t possibly allow someone else to have the last word even if everyone else noticed twelve posts before the exchange had degenerated into “Way”/“No Way”(repeat) and there will be no progress. (\* For whom the usual remedy is opening a Pit thread) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/44 "2022-01-09T20:57:29Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Back in the early days of the Internet, it wasn’t trolling, and people weren’t trolls. The word was _ **trawling** _ . As in industrial scale fishing. There was a shift in spelling in probably the mid-90’s. Cite? Because I’ve known it as trolling since the early 90s and Usenet. You’re right that it’s a fishing reference, but a [different, more appropriate one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)). ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/45 "2022-01-09T21:03:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Cite? Because I’ve known it as trolling since the early 90s and Usenet. You’re right that it’s a fishing reference, but a [different, more appropriate one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)). Yeah, I was on in the early 90’s and I’ve only seen it as “trolling”. It works in the sense of dangling baits, and in the sense of acting like, well, a troll. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2022, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/46 "2022-01-09T21:30:18Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Gaagh. I apologize. I could have sworn I read somewhere that he used that word. But I think he emphasized that the former president had lost the election. And I still think he was trying to rile up Trump. If you hadn’t gotten the incendiary word “loser” stuck in your memory from the outset, do you think you’d still feel that way? Look, here’s the thing about Trump. He’s a paper-skinned fraudulent narcissist, as are many of his supporters. If we prioritize these people’s feelings, then we can never speak frankly and candidly about them. They know this, and this is why they do a soccer flop whenever the conversation gets too truthful. Biden wasn’t trolling Trump. He was simply speaking candidly about a man who cannot tolerate the candid truth about himself. That’s not on Biden. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/47 "2022-01-10T00:23:44Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > I don’t think what a troll believes in or not matters. What matters is a lack of sincerity in engaging in conversation. Perfectly stated; I agree completely. And because there’s an XKCD for everything: just because you sincerely believe the Twilight franchise sucks, doesn’t mean it’s not trolling to go onto the fan boards to say so. At least the trolls were honest with themselves about that: [xkcd: Troll Slayer](https://xkcd.com/591/) > [@MrDibble](#): > > Cite? Because I’ve known it as trolling since the early 90s and Usenet. You’re right that it’s a fishing reference, but a [different, more appropriate one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)). Thank you for this; I’ve been wondering for some time now whether trolling came from trawling. I didn’t know trolling was its own literal thing. Ignorance fought! ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/48 "2022-01-10T00:31:55Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > it’s a fishing reference, but a [different, more appropriate one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolling_(fishing)). Yup. I’ll give you that. My memory is hazy of the time. I suspect there was confusion back then and I saw references going the wrong way. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/49 "2022-01-10T01:23:40Z")
> [@XT](#): > > And all of that is certainly correct (I was going to hedge this with ‘from Biden’s perspective’ but, really, it is correct from reality’s perspective). However, as noted up-thread, you can be correct and still trolling someone, and Biden (or whoever his speechwriter was on this) would have known that this would piss off not only Trump but ‘Trumpists’ as well…so, that’s the intent part. Knowing something you say will piss someone off is not inherently trolling. It might be. But if you say something that is relevant and sincere (and you say it with that intent) it is not “trolling” merely because you know you may piss people off. As to Biden’s speech, there is a subtlety that is being missed here - a key point that Biden was making was that Trump lied about a stolen election “_because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution._” I suspect that Biden (IMHO correctly) considers that right wing people are less likely to be concerned with Trump’s attempt to stay in office if they perceive it as being about maintaining right wing power. But if they perceive his attempt to stay in office as merely the actions of an egotistical maniac, then less so. To make his point good, Biden needed to highlight that Trump - who loves to declare himself a “winner” and to sneer at “losers” - had lost but can’t accept that he lost. And that it is therefore plausible if not downright certain that Trump’s subsequent conduct was all about him attempting to put a band-aid over the damage to his sickeningly precious ego. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/50 "2022-01-10T01:34:26Z")
This. It has always been “trolling” and it isn’t just a matter of random terminological happenstance as between trolling and trawling. Trawling is moving forward with a net to catch fish. Trolling is towing a bait so that fish will seek it out and bite on it. The idea of saying something silly or provocative in the hope someone will “bite” on your bait goes back well pre-internet. I can think of books written in the 1920’s or 30’s that use the terminology (certainly of “biting” on a deliberately provocative conversational “bait” if not “trolling”). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/51 "2022-01-10T03:17:16Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > My idea, before the SDMB crazy one, was that trolling was intentionally posting something inflammatory to get a rise out of people _and that you did not personally believe_ . More or less that is what I think. And sometimes, intentionally posting something inflammatory to get a rise out of people that you don’t care about that much but you want to stir the shit. Like this- > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Gotta agree with what was mentioned above, that in _general terms_ , you can have a “sincere” troll insofar as you may have someone who truly holds the belief that is offending others, but is _ **consciously** _ expressing it such a manner as to “derail, disrupt and aggravate” other participants into losing their patience and breaking rules first, or throwing their hands up and quitting so he can claim victory. But based upon the dozens of definitions here, Not to mention the super long pit threads there are two types of trolling- Obvious Troll is trolling and Trolling is in the mind of the beholder. Mostly if someone disagrees with a poster strongly about an issue that poster holds dear- the poster considers that someone to be trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390/52 "2022-01-10T05:33:07Z")
Thus [spake the master](https://www.straightdope.com/21342904/what-is-a-troll) in 2000. The entry is full of quaint references to Usenet and the like. Basically it’s intentionally aggravating people to get reactions. It can even be just posting shaggy dog type posts that tend to garner hundreds of responses that meander on and on, with no actual conclusion or solution being offered. For instance, I consider FB posts like “Name a city without an A in it…I bet you can’t!” to be trolling, and possibly also the one about the animals in the bedroom asking how many legs are on the floor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-is-trolling/957390.md?page=2)