Webcomic Beacon #145: Trolls, Griefers, & Jackasses

Adam joins Fes, Tanya, and Mark to discuss internet trolls, griefers, and jackasses. Complete with stories, examples, as well as the last word. We even go into some “false positives” as far as trolls may be concerned.

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Cover Art by: “TweetIJJ” (It’s Just Josh).

Also, did you catch the Tropecast #1: Cast Fillers, aka  Episode #144? That updated earlier this week.

Notes: The break song was Sorry, My Brother’s a Jerk by Hot Waffles, Urban Dictionary: Troll, The Webcomic List, Webcomics Weekly #71, Sherm Sherman’s Twitter, ComicGenesis Troll Thread, Art of Trolling, Milestones: Smyzer and Blyde (2yrs)

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Comments

Man, I thought I used to troll back in the day, but apparently I wasn’t doing it right since I paid attention to what the other people said. I don’t even know how you could effectively hurt someone if you didn’t understand their weaknesses.

Dropping dox was always a favorite tactic.

@dowhatnow – I think part of the problem is that what passes for a “troll” has changed over the years, especially since the advent of SomethingAwful and 4chan. I touched on the difference between a Smart and a Stupid Troll during the podcast. You, like me, were probably a “Smart” troll, exploiting weaknesses in structures, in the psychologies of others, in failures in communication and in the established systems.

Essentially, a Smart Troll is a Guerilla fighter who knows what he is doing and is choosing to do evil for his own amusement (or in rare occasions, for something he actually believes in) whereas a Stupid Troll is a terrorist who just walks into the middle of a forum with a link for Lemon Party strapped to his chest and tries to lure as many n00bs into the thread as he can before he detonates it.

I particularly dislike “drive-by” promoters in a forum. They show up just to pimp their comic, and never come back after the one post. Sometimes they flat out tell you, “Hey, I don’t hang out on your forum, so hit me up with an e-mail or comments on my site!” Other just necro threads or start pointless threads in order to get more links out there, like that Xzentricks idiot did on TWCL. Good thing I don’t have mod powers, because they’d be insta-banned.

I’m very behind on my podcast archive, but I can’t wait to hear this episode. I had a troll/griefer come through my comic and post a bunch of jerk-ass comments. Happened to also occur at a time that I was doubting the comic, but in the end, ended up making me resolve to make it better.

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