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Friday, December 28, 2012

Killing Trolls

If you've been on the internet for longer than fifteen minutes, you've probably already encountered a few Trolls. These are pathetic excuses for people whose sole purpose in life is to instigate and provoke. [See Example Idiot Twitter Profile Here: @virus]

On the playground, these were the type of idiots playing "He said, She said" games to see if they could start fights between other kids. They take great pride in causing strife and derision whenever they can, and the internet is their new playground.

Unlike the playground, where the possibility of a broken nose is very real, on the internet these Trolls know they can safely run their mouth without immediate and direct consequences. This makes it 'fun' for them to constantly puke out a wide range of stupid comments, all with the intention of making you mad.

"U mad bro?" 

I'm not nearly as mad as these Trolls are stupid, however, I will admit that I despise these idiots more than the Nazis and the Westboro Baptist Church combined. So I'm going to show you how to kill them. Not, physically, of course ... because that would be 'wrong' (wouldn't it?) No, I'm going to show you how to kill them on their playground, the internet.

Trolls feed on attention so the most effective way to kill them is by starving them to death.

'Don't feed the Trolls' is a meme most internet users have heard, because responding to anything Trolls say will give them the attention they're desperately seeking from others. But you can take this a step further by Blocking them and Deleting their comments.

It's important to delete their comments because they are not only intended to 'make u mad', they're actually aimed at your whole audience. I mean, why bother trying to provoke one person with a comment when you can just post something so stupid that 20 or 30 people immediately respond to, thus giving you that precious inflow of attention that you never got from mommy and daddy, right?

A troll's comments are merely fishing lines that these idiots cast out in great numbers, and they're just waiting for a bite. So cut their strings and let their bait sink to bottom. Of course, blocking their profile prevents them from ever fishing in your stream again.

But you can take this step even further by knowing your audience and actively removing the obvious trolls.

On YouTube, when someone comments on one of my videos, before I even respond, I go to the their channel and see who they are. Same on Twitter. These social media platforms ain't called 'Profiles' for nothing. Viewing the content you produce always shows who you are, even when you're trying to hide it.

Actively removing Trolls from your audience takes away sections of their playground. If everyone with sense did this routinely, it would only take a short time before ALL the trolls would have painted themselves into a very small corner of the internet. Where they would be forced to sit, attempting to provoke and instigate only themselves.

Who cares what Trolls say? What harm are they really? I mean, their stupidity doesn't affect you directly, right? Wrong.

Without going into a quantum mechanics tirade about how all living organisms directly influence the field in which all energy swims, just let me say this: Trolls are pissing in our well every time they open their mouth, and while we sit back, do nothing, and allow it ... we're still drinking the water.


- Chad Lilly


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