The Null Device

Posts matching tags 'trolls'

2013/9/1

A piece in The Quietus about the rise of the “trollitician”, a type of gleefully objectionable right-wing populist whose shtick is that the “silent majority”—middle-aged straight white men, Christians, motorists, smokers, whatever—are now being oppressed by an all-powerful alien hegemony (variously defined as “the trendy Left”, “political correctness”, “health and safety” or “Cultural Marxism”) which is denying their God-given rights as straight, affluent white men, from smoking in the pub to spanking their children to slapping the secretary's bottom when she walks past or cracking racist jokes in public:

“Today, we throw off our chains. Today is the day that, finally, we can say 'no', and to mean 'no'. 'No' to speed cameras, 'no' to overgenerous maternity pay, 'no' to wheelchair ramps and to cushy holidays for juvenile delinquents! 'No' to trendy teachers and the Marxist curriculum! 'No' to new mosques and gay marriage and, especially, to gay marriage in new mosques! 'No' to endless apologising for the slave trade, and for the Empire: after all, everyone's been invaded at some point! And it was ages ago! 'No' to striking nurses and firemen, and 'no' to the union leaders who still – still, can you believe it? - have us by the balls! What's wrong with a bit of sodding common sense? Look, some of our best friends are black! If they can take a laugh and a joke, I don't know why that Owen Jones and Laurie Penny bloody can't. And we'll say 'yes', too. 'Yes' to the property ladder. 'Yes' to golf clubs, to kit cars and the neighbourhood watch! 'Yes' to new, better wedding vows: 'Do you take this fine piece of totty to be your lawfully wedded crumpet?' 'Yes' to the Royal Family – I'm not that bothered myself, but, let's face it, they bring the tourists in and older people like them. Think about it. Think about how happy they make your gran, you wouldn't want to take that away from her, would you? We'll celebrate the Best of British – Churchill and Brunel and Nelson. Dogged, determined, wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, cut through the red tape. Where's all that now? Where's tradition? Where's 'Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more'? What do we have instead? Communism! Great idea in theory, but it'd never work in practice; people are naturally competitive – Darwin proved this, but try telling that to the schools. All the kids ever hear these days is about how everything we've done is wrong. But it's stopping now. No more, we say, no more of this nonsense. Because today, Rugby Club Land dares to do more than whisper the word, and instead shouts it out loud, proud and British – 'INDEPENDENCE'.”
The altering of the dimensions of the argument is where the likes of Bloom become significant. Their work is twofold. On one hand, they consume the energies of the left through irritation: while we know what they're saying is essentially dumb and contradictory, we still feel obliged to respond (as I'm doing here). For conservatives – from the rabid right to the parish council – they serve to stoke a sense that it's the dominant sections of society (the white, the male, the heterosexual, the middle class) who are getting it in the neck. If one read nothing but the Daily Mail it would be easy enough to become convinced that Britain really was a country in which it was possible to be oppressed and persecuted for being a straight bloke with a Lexus. The new mythology states that the left are dictating the political sphere and, in doing so, hammering the "ordinary people in the rugby and cricket club."

culture war politics rightwingers trolls uk 0

2012/12/12

Between 1975 and 1979, a number of dialogues were held between various cultural and artistic figures on the then embryonic ARPANET network, which would, in time, become the internet. Here's Dialogue IV, held in April 1976, and featuring Yoko Ono, Sidney Nolan, Jim Henson and Ayn Rand. There are few surprises in how it plays out; the characters are true to form, with Ono as the fey hippy mystic, Rand as the original chatroom troll (who starts off in characteristic form by throwing shit from her self-declared moral high ground and ends up driving everyone else out), and Henson and Nolan presenting perhaps more nuanced perspectives:

JIM HENSON: But there is always conflict.
YOKO ONO: But it does not have to be this way. Does your work Mr Henson not try to prove this?
JIM HENSON: No. Conflict is what defines my characters in many ways and how they respond to it.
JIM HENSON: I think Ms. Rand and my character Oscar the Grouch would have a lot to talk about actually. I am laughing out loud at this idea.
AYN RAND: Why would I want to talk to him. What has he achieved or trying to achieve.
JIM HENSON: He has achieved what I think is the ultimate goal of your way of thinking.

(via Zoë) arpanet arpanet dialogues ayn rand history ideas jim henson online sidney nolan trolls yoko ono 2

2008/2/20

How To Behave On An Internet Forum, presented in the form of a retrostyled pixel-art video:

WE'RE NOT INTERESTED IN THIS SORT OF THING

(via Boing Boing) culture godwin's law howto humour netiquette online pixel art trolls video 0

2007/7/31

Fox News has uncovered a sinister hacking group named Anonymous, which destroys peoples' lives for laughs (or LULZ as they put it):

They are hackers on steroids, treating the web like a real life video game. Sacking websites, invading MySpace accounts and disrupting innocent people's lives.
They plastered his profile with gay sex pictures. His girlfriend left him.
These "domestic terrorists"' other activities have included threatening to detonate "dirty bombs" in sports stadiums (illustrated with footage of a car bomb, which may or may not have been connected with the group) and invading bookshops with megaphones and telling everyone who dies in the new Harry Potter book (considerately bleeped out by Fox News).

foxnews goons hoax lulz trolls 0

2004/2/4

Someone receives an empty Mac G5 case (no further explanation provided) and builds a PC in it as a prank/conversation piece. Then he writes it up, spinning it as a way of turning an unwanted G5 into a Windows PC. Consequently he gets death threats from Mac zealots across the net.

"I hope your PC blows up and leaves your miserable face disfigured forever," read one. "You will surely burn in hell for an eternity for this one." Another said Andy should be hung by his testicles and set on fire. "Turning a perfectly good dual G5 into a crappy PC was the ticket that got you to hell," wrote another, citing the common eternal damnation theme. "And if you were in front of me I'd pop a corn-born Teflon bullet from my Glock in your fucking face."

Proof that there's a vocal minority of Mac users who are utterly batshit insane.

extremists mac trolls wtf 1

2003/11/3

Via the newly-resurrected bOING bOING: Everything in Moderation is an online forum (run by Tom "plasticbag.org" Coates) dedicated to the management of online communities, and more specifically, to moderating comments, encouraging good behaviour, discouraging trolls and the like. There you'll find fascinating studies in social engineering and useful practical tips such as simulating technical faults to get rid of unwelcome posters without provoking them into a war, and the use of cookies to detect trolls with multiple tentacles.

And, surprisingly enough, the last one received a comment from an "avowed Slashdot troll", outlining how, against a serious troll with access to cookie-poisoning plugins, anonymous web proxies and thousands of trolling accounts (all automated, natch), such a scheme wouldn't work, and giving an outline of a determined troll's formidable arsenal of tools.

The moral of this story is: never underestimate the ingenuity of guys without girlfriends.

moderation online social engineering society trolls 0

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