Who remembers trolls? Those ugly little men with the big colourful (pink, green, orange) furry hair? You could buy them in all different sizes and even small ones with holes in their bottoms so that you could stick them on the end of your pencil or pen. They were pretty cool, in their time, but the fad didn't last very long.
Wasn't there also a fairytale about trolls under a bridge or something, who ate people who tried to cross the bridge??? My memory fails me.
Whatever ... trolls are ugly and supposedly nasty.
Recently I learned about a new phenomenon called 'Internet Trolls'. They, apparently, troll through the Internet looking for blogs, chat forums, Facebook comments etc., and attempt to stir up trouble by posting derogatory comments and trying to incite anger and arguments with their words.
I remember, about 8 years ago, registering with the games site 'Pogo'. You can play all sorts of different games for free, like Keno, Bingo, Hangman etc. Pretty innocent stuff really. Each games room had a little panel on one side where you could chat with the other players. I was quite addicted to this site, mostly because I had found it at a time when I was very unhappy with my life. I found other lonely people in there and formed nice cyber-friendships. They helped me through a tough period...but I digress...
Quite often, while in these games rooms, if we had a lively happy chat going on with a group, a stranger would suddenly appear and start trying to cause trouble. They would pinpoint one name in the group and start calling them names, or accuse them of having done something horrible like stealing from a friend or dealing drugs to children. Something that might make the rest of the group question the integrity of the person named.
Sometimes their ploy worked and it would make people very angry, but luckily, there was a 'report' button and we were able to have them ejected from the room fairly quickly.
I'm just not sure I understand the mindset of Internet Trolls, who are essentially, bullies. I don't understand bullies at all. I don't understand people who choose to BE unhappy or choose to make OTHER people unhappy.
I also don't understand people who take the bait. If you take the bait, aren't you satisfying the bully's desires? If somebody sends you a bullying text message, shouldn't you delete it and ignore it? Why would you take it one step further by responding to the message or trying to set a trap for the bully, or reacting in any way? Doesn't that just incite more bullying? Such wasted energy.
If you put your energy into creating a happy, peaceful life for the people who love you, for the people who you love, and for yourself, wouldn't the world be a happy place? Isn't that what everybody wants? To be happy?
I feel like bursting into song! ... What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of...
So, if you are an Internet Troll, just as an experiment, would you, the next time you find a site to harass, consider just saying "Hullo!" and wishing everyone a happy day?
You might just make a friend or two along the way!
http://www.flayme.com/troll/
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