Hey, wear whatever you want, sell whatever t-shirt you want, no sweat off my back. This kind of humor is cheap, and possibly hurtful. If you're cool with that, it's your business.
I've never heard that trolling had to be anonymous by definition, and I've been kicking around the internet for 15 years or so. Trolls aim to be deliberately disruptive, and if you're in public wearing a shirt with any of the slogans on TSH, then you are aiming to be disruptive. One reaps what one sows.
ps - I'm watching our points go up & down depending on who agrees with us. It's kind of amusing.
Yeah, I like watching the debate swirl around stuff like this. It's fascinating stuff.
Trolls aren't the only people who're disruptive. It depends on intent. Trolls do it just to cause pain. But if you get that shirt primarily to shock people into a new way of thinking, then it's not trolling. For instance, I'm considering getting the "slaves get shit done" shirt I mentioned. I don't typically wear shocking shirts, but I thought that one was genuinely funny. The point of wearing a shirt like that wouldn't be offending people. It would be to slowly make these more controversial topics (slavery humor, foul language) acceptable in the mainstream. It raises the question of what's acceptable to wear on clothing. My view is everything goes, and I figure that getting a shirt like that might help spread the message.
Cheap? I dunno. Some of the jokes are, some are legitimately clever. Yeah, they're all shocking, but some are shocking in the way that "Rednecks", the Randy Newman song, are. (That song is sung from the point of view of some rednecks "keepin' the niggers down"; some people miss that the point of the song is that stereotyping against rednecks is just as bad as stereotyping black people.)
But I guess it's a matter of taste. Fun discussion, either way.
What's the difference between trolling and satire, then? Where's it stop becoming a social statement and start becoming a case of merely provoking argument thoughtlessly?
Comments
Hey, wear whatever you want, sell whatever t-shirt you want, no sweat off my back. This kind of humor is cheap, and possibly hurtful. If you're cool with that, it's your business.
I've never heard that trolling had to be anonymous by definition, and I've been kicking around the internet for 15 years or so. Trolls aim to be deliberately disruptive, and if you're in public wearing a shirt with any of the slogans on TSH, then you are aiming to be disruptive. One reaps what one sows.
ps - I'm watching our points go up & down depending on who agrees with us. It's kind of amusing.
Yeah, I like watching the debate swirl around stuff like this. It's fascinating stuff.
Trolls aren't the only people who're disruptive. It depends on intent. Trolls do it just to cause pain. But if you get that shirt primarily to shock people into a new way of thinking, then it's not trolling. For instance, I'm considering getting the "slaves get shit done" shirt I mentioned. I don't typically wear shocking shirts, but I thought that one was genuinely funny. The point of wearing a shirt like that wouldn't be offending people. It would be to slowly make these more controversial topics (slavery humor, foul language) acceptable in the mainstream. It raises the question of what's acceptable to wear on clothing. My view is everything goes, and I figure that getting a shirt like that might help spread the message.
Cheap? I dunno. Some of the jokes are, some are legitimately clever. Yeah, they're all shocking, but some are shocking in the way that "Rednecks", the Randy Newman song, are. (That song is sung from the point of view of some rednecks "keepin' the niggers down"; some people miss that the point of the song is that stereotyping against rednecks is just as bad as stereotyping black people.)
But I guess it's a matter of taste. Fun discussion, either way.
I thought anonymity was why trolling was/is so prevalent.
Anonymity may be why it's so prevalent on the internet, but it's not a prerequisite.
What's the difference between trolling and satire, then? Where's it stop becoming a social statement and start becoming a case of merely provoking argument thoughtlessly?