My childhood straddled the fading of the analog age and the dawning of the digital, got to explain to the incredulous adults that yes, the computers were in fact talking to one another. Also got to spend a good deal of time wandering around unsupervised in that wild, wild place that was the early days of the internet. Probably spent too much of it on TOTSE (Temple Of The Screaming Electron), a fun little place where you could find how-to guides for everything from cooking meth to hacking electronic signs. It was also one of the birthplaces of early internet trolling, a sort of proto-troll incubator for what would later evolve into the culture of places like 4chan.
Back then, trolling was a slightly different critter, more mischievous than malicious. Think chaotic neutral. Dangerous perhaps, but not hateful typically. Somewhere along the way, trolling got dumbed down to simply saying mean things on the interwebs and then pointing fingers at folks' reactions, just another way of spelling cyberbullying.
Grownups ruin everything. . . If that wasn't bad enough, some folks spend so much time online that they start acting the same way in the ol' RL, just spouting off whatever fucked up thing popped into their head at the nearest passerby.
It's curious though, the ones most inclined to take it offline seem to have one thing in common; they're consistently terrible at trolling. Take Westboro Baptist here, they might have been shocking in the early aughts but they've not said anything new since then, now your average GOP sound bite puts them to shame. They're just trying to get you to do something they can sue you for anyways, up close it just looks like some tawdry grift.
More than anything though, the real life trolls remind me of NPCs, just a drop down menu of offensive phrases and cliche comebacks with nary an original thought to be found. They're about as fun to talk to as an NPC too. Luckily, the 1st Rule of Internet is just as applicable offline, just remember 'Don't feed the trolls' and you'll be fine.
