am currently feeling much respect and admiration for trolls, those masters of Making People Get Mad on the Internet
a crucial class in our information ecology
polluter of the commons? no. they keep us fit
if something someone says on the internet makes you Mad and it ruins your day, you deserve it
it's a tradition as old as the medium - culture in battle-hardened spaces reflect this
on 4chan "nice bait" is standard jargon; bad/unsuccessful trolling is acknowledged by a rebuke of "i am not mad, try again next time"
also why members of such spaces have stronger memetic immunity - a realization that getting mad = losing implies that to Win is to Have Fun, turning finite games into infinite ones
a race to have as much fun as possible - beautiful
this inspired by a dear friend whose latest exploits made my night a little better (sorry for non-Indonesian friends who cannot read this but please understand something absolutely hysterical is going on)
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RT @JoniKetapang
@yinfutang Aduhh mba.. klo bukan urusan kita ngapain dia apdet terus ttg percintaan dia sama dapim di twitter... kita harus kawal terus ini sampe abis
https://twitter.com/JoniKetapang/status/1370354825922113540
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RT @GlitchesRoux
@amirism_ trolls are arms dealers for a war in which they only participate with artillery and cowardice; eventually there is blowback, and postrats and other civvies get hit
https://twitter.com/GlitchesRoux/status/1370440399282528258
above all for the master troll, nothing is taken seriously - to do so opens them up to getting Mad (which would ruin their day and not be fun)
radically cynical, yet they understand something the tiresomely earnest do not - about what is Good in life