Trolling!

When I was in my teens I learned that in gay slang; "trolling" meant being on the lookout for a (usually) sexual partner. I was told it derived from patrolling. I've always felt that "cruising" better described many hunting homosexual men. The most successful hunters projected an air of relaxed disinterest as they scanned and assessed potential prey; dismissing some and homing in on others.

More recently "Trolling" is about being rude and nasty online- derived from the trolls of childhood stories I expect... here's a wikipedia definition.

I've recently had my first encounters with tolls: I stumbled across a You Tube clip of a guy playing funk bass in Northumberland Street, in Newcastle. I'd seen him once and was happy to put cash in his hat. I 'liked' the clip and was about to make a comment when I read a surprisingly hateful, racist comment that entirely ignored the musician's talent, labelled him a vagrant and claimed that white people are at a disadvantage in business and career development because of liberal policies. 

I registered my admiration of the performer but made an allusion to the comment that had surprised me and others made by the same person as people objected to him and he turned on me calling me a homo, ignorant, uneducated, expecting hand-outs and a loser! It was briefly entertaining to play with this dolt. Pushing his buttons whilst being entirely polite was a delight.

The second, like the first is I think American. This troll barged into a facebook conversation instigated by a fiesty African friend from Cameroon, about "middle class white people" and "the media" giving Africans grief about the intolerance to homosexuality in their countries whilst remaining silent about similar or worse intolerance in South and East Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries. This troll diverted the conversation into a rally against the disgusting perversion of homosexuality and how expressing "disgust" was not the same as being prejudiced -despite it being clear that "faggots" weren't "natural" or "normal" etc etc...

I commented that it was likely the troll was being gratified by the attention he was getting and the apparent irritation he was fomenting and reminded those in the conversation about what we were really discussing...

It occurs to me that some people have few "wins" in their day to day lives. The internet gives them a sort of "hit and run" ability to stab at people with minimum risk of a retaliation that might actually harm them. I didn't experience much active intellect at work, just a limited collection of pre-programmed, poorly understood responses no doubt originally uttered by someone they admire. If their stupidities and prejudices are exposed, if their arguments are defeated, if they're even banned from further participation; its not hard to don a new digital costume and have another crack. I suppose letting them THINK they've won is the humane thing to do... but only when it gets boring. I'm definitely not on a troll hunt, but my first two were so  ignorant and inarticulate they weren't even mildly stimulating experiences.