Trolling and Social Media Conflict.
Ass. 1b. Week 7. Trolling and Social Media Conflict.
Trolling! I must confess, I have used this term often enough, but I have never really been able to define it. After reading Dana Boyd’s piece “Bullying: is social media amplifying meanness and cruelty? (Boyd 2014), I have not only gained a clearer understanding, but I also had a moment of self-realisation. I can be a bit of a bully, and I most definitely have been guilty of being a troll. To me, the two aspects go hand in hand. I grew up in a family of seven kids. It was survival of the toughest. So I became the bully, along with the meanest of sisters. The rest suffered at our hands. Of course, part of that was being able to provoke a reaction from my siblings, hopefully, a violent outburst that would get them in trouble by dad. So along with Boyd’s description and my practical knowledge, I think I can safely say I understand what bullying is. “Central to bullying are three main factors: aggression, repetition, and imbalance of power” (Boyd 2014 p. 131).
Boyd goes on to expand or break this down into what teenagers call drama. Drama is a situation where teens play out (not unlike reality television) dramas in their lives in order to gain social status (Boyd 2014 p. 142). One would assume this includes, or at least encourages bullying, but according to the surveyed youth, it is no longer bullying if there is an opportunity to retaliate (Boyd 2014 p.143). In my case, I would leave no such opportunity, but then, social media was not around.
Having related to Boyd’s writings, and reflecting again on my own social media habits, I had to take a look at my posting. Enter McCosker with his article on “Trolling as provocation: YouTube’s agnostic publics” (McCosker 2013). McCosker suggests that trolling, while negative, or as he put it, vitriolic, may also have a positive impact on the relationship between the troll and the poster (McCosker 2013). Can engaging in banter with a troll develop into some form of legitimate mate-ship? While I believe it can, noting that I love a good bit of hard banter, not everyone would agree. I do it because I love it; I love to argue, and I love people to argue back. Considering that in social media forums people have the opportunity to defend or retaliate, this is no longer bullying, but instead, this is now trolling.
An article in The Fibreculture Journal (2013) makes some valid points. Engaging a troll in a debate is a way of acknowledging them and legitimising them. You answer them, you lose. So as the wise world of the internet says, “Do not feed them!” (Fuller, McCrea & Wilson 2013). At first, the article suggests there is an amount of anonymity in Trolling. Um! Not sure they have opened the net lately, I am a troll, my name is real. So, in my case, that point is redundant. “Eventually it is positively defined as an art of mediated, dialogical performance” (Fuller, McCrea & Wilson 2013). I can live with this definition.
Boyd, D 2014, It's complicated: the social lives of networked teens, Yale University Press, New Haven USA, pp. 128.152.
FB Cover Lovers n.d., The Trollfather, [image], viewed 6 January, 2019, <https://www.fbcoverlover.com/cover/3898>.
Fuller, G, McCrea, C & Wilson, J 2013, "Trolls and the negative space of the internet", The Fibreculture Journal, no. 22, pp. 1-14, viewed 6 January, 2019, <http://twentytwo.fibreculturejournal.org/>.
Infospace 2013, Dont feed the trolls, [image], viewed 6 January, 2019, <https://ischool.syr.edu/infospace/2013/06/03/sticks-and-stones-does-internet-trolling-really-matter/>.
McCosker, A 2013, "Trolling as provocation", Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217, viewed 3 January, 2019, <https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/1354856513501413>.
Quick meme n.d., Drama drama everywhere, [image], viewed 6 January, 2019, <http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3ofum7>.
tumblr 2018, Love hate, [image], viewed 6 January, 2019, <https://cuckstyle503.tumblr.com/post/172092422224>.
Webdonuts 2014, Bully, [image], viewed 6 January, 2019, <http://www.webdonuts.com/2014/05/bully/>.
