Digital Citizenship: Trolling & Social Media Conflict
In today’s addiction to the internet from most of us, it is rather normal and frequent for us to come across and experienced matters such as the “internet trolls”. This term is known as a person who brings up the topic for quarreling and making others upset on the online platform such as the Internet. The purpose of “internet trolling” is to provoke the public into giving responses based on their own emotions which contributes for the troll’s amusement or even specific benefit. Internet trolling will always be the start of a hot topic on social media platforms, as well as other types of online communities. To most people, “internet trolling” draws a huge amount of interest because often people finds a sense of humor in it, which is highly appreciated. Despite this, the act of trolling someone or someone being trolled will get worst and also nastier gradually from time to time. Therefore, “internet trolling” can never be just a laughing matter (Moreau 2018). Internet trolling happens most frequently among public figures on the social media platforms such as between artists, YouTubers, politicians and can literally happen to anyone.
Of course, internet trolling can happen in many ways and places on the internet. This includes blog comments, forum websites, emails, YouTube video comments and literally any social networking site.
As an example, one of the hottest internet trolling case this month is the happening of one of Singapore’s top online social influencer named Xiaxue, who did a Halloween make-up tutorial video on her well-known YouTube channel. What is so special about this? Well, this is not just any normal Halloween make-up, but it is how she managed to do her face almost exactly like the wife of Malaysia’s former prime minister, Rosmah Mansor. Rosmah is known by almost everyone for being involved in money-laundering and misuse of the country’s state fund with all of her lavish lifestyle spendings. With the occasion of Halloween coming up, Xiaxue has eye-catchingly used this chance to turn into Rosmah’s outlook for her Halloween character, mainly just for the sense of humor. Xiaxue did mentioned herself in the video that nothing is more scary than rampant corruption in a country.
Before the video was shown to the public, Xiaxue did posted a two-second video clip of herself in the outlook of Rosmah in a jail attire with cutouts of luxury brand Hermes handbags. She received many pissed off messages from the public asking her to respect Rosmah instead. Negative feedbacks and comments was thrown directly onto Xiaxue some saying that she should not do this, as she is a Singaporean therefore has no right to interfere in Malaysia’s political issue. Xiaxue of coursed did argued back saying that there are no such rules, and it can be seen that the world is always making fun of America’s president, Donald Trump as well (Why the hate, S’porean blogger Xiaxue asks after getting flak for Rosmah Halloween make-up 2018).
When all sorts of provoking messages appeared in the comments of her released video on the Halloween make-up tutorial, Xiaxue, however, took the hate and mentioned that she loved looking at all those attention from the public. Despite all these negative comments, there is another percentage of digital community that look at the lighter side to her video. A post was created where there is Rosmah’s face and Xiaxue’s fake face of hers with a funny comment stating that “Utilising Face ID, Xiaxue confirm can unlock Rosmah’s Iphone” (Foo 2018).
List of References
Moreau, E 2018, Internet trolling: how do you spot a real troll?, Lifewire, viewed 25 October 2018, <https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-internet-trolling-3485891>.
Why the hate, S’porean blogger Xiaxue asks after getting flak for Rosmah Halloween make-up 2018, Mediacorp News Group, viewed 25 October 2018, <https://www.todayonline.com/world/why-hate-blogger-xiaxue-asks-after-getting-flak-rosmah-halloween-make>.
Foo, K 2018, Xiaxue gets threats and verbal abuse after posting video of her Rosmah Halloween look, The Straits Times, viewed 26 October 2018, <https://stomp.straitstimes.com/singapore-seen/xiaxue-gets-threats-and-verbal-abuse-after-posting-video-of-her-rosmah-halloween-look>.