Do you think ignoring the boorish behaviors made it worse? - Results (3 votes)
Yes
33.33% (1 vote)
1
No
66.67% (2 votes)
2
According to the conventional wisdom of the internet, theres one simple guideline for responding to trolls: dont feed them. Ignore them, dont react to them, dont give them the attention they want. The axiom has become such a reflexive piece of advice and assumed knowledge that it can often be difficult to see the misperceptions and dismissiveness at its heart, the four hideous lies that perpetuate the cycle of misunderstanding, and the grim, cruel reality it has helped to enable in online culture.
The first great lie is about the sanctity of the past.
Recently, I tweeted about the pervasive nature of trolling and how people have always excused online behavior that is largely inexcusable. Almost immediately, a professor in London chastised that idea. He insisted that there was indeed a golden age for trolling, especially for those of us who can actually remember the eternal September, the month in 1993 when a huge influx of America Online users began to overwhelm the online culture and norms of Usenet.
Reader, I laughed. It is unsurprising for a distinguished professor to engage in this kind of gatekeeper behavior. After all, his esteem rests on the fact that he knows certain things that others do not. Like all gatekeeper behavior, it was ostensibly a check on the credibility of the target. Also like all gatekeeper behavior, it wasnt really about whether or not someone passes the test, but rather the gatekeeper feeling like they can control what is true and not true about the subject. Alas for him, I was there in 1993, too, equal parts young, nave, and shy, but so damn excited about the idea of suddenly communicating with people around the world. This was a new thing, after all. And I will never, ever forget my first reaction to dealing with strangers on the internet: Why is everyone so mean?
From Usenet to early online forums, it was all the same: insults, flame wars, secret languages and inside jokes, and the glad-handing justification that always accompanied it: they were simply trolling. It was all just a joke. When my confused little brain bumped up against this notion, there was an immediate pushback with the general sentiment of forget it, kid. Its internet town.
Some other gatekeeper might come along and say, Well, you just had to be there for Arpanet or [insert whatever period comes just before your own]. But it doesnt matter. Whether were talking about AOL, AIM, early 4chan, or the early days of Twitter, there has always been a myth about the time and place where things were more innocent, when trolling was all in good fun. But what everyone really remembers about these proverbial times isnt their purity. Its how they didnt see the big deal back then. They remember how they felt a sense of permission, a belief that it was all okay. But that was only true for those who were like them, who thought exactly like they did. All the while, someone else was getting stepped on and bullied while others laughed. The story of the internet has always been the same story: disaffected young men thinking their boorish and cruel behavior was justified or permissible.