It’s hard to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room, especially when he’s screaming rage-fueled obscenities into your face and bathing you in his excrement. So let’s finally acknowledge it: That’s right, it’s time to talk about comment trolls. O, comments sections! The dive bar of the Internet; where communication finally hits rock bottom and turns over its life to Christ. The Kitty Genovese of language; where intellectual discourse is raped and murdered while everybody watches, yet nobody lifts a finger to stop it. Comments sections are where loaded guns of idiocy discharge reams of retard bullets into innocent and unsuspecting bodies of text, leaving all of language itself wounded and bleeding. Comments, like teenagers, contribute absolutely nothing to anything, yet they are inexplicably allowed to exist pretty much everywhere. It’s been said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, so let’s see if we can’t find out why this tragedy occurred, and maybe, just maybe, we can start taking back the dark night of the Internet.
This is both the logo for the anti-rape movement, and the caution sign posted when Prince is fed up with your shit.
Way back in the rough and tumble days of the Internet, utilitarianism was king, entertainment media was a distant dream, and pornography had to actually be printed out to be masturbated to correctly. Back then we had these things called Bulletin Board Systems, or BBS for short, which were little more than regional discussion boards–you literally just paid for access to a local forum and whatever the moderators put there, that was what you had. There were a few larger, themed boards (mostly text-based RPGs where people used this thing called “imagination” to play online computer games, and the term “grinding” was still relegated to the thing you did into your sock while typing out exactly what you’d do to those naughty night elves) but for a good deal of the nation, if you had Internet access, it was inextricably tied to your home town.
Do you realize what that meant?
That meant that most of the early Internet was literally nothing but comments, and it was, counter-intuitively, all rather civil. Because it was a whole different matter to measure, gauge and state the level of somebody’s “fucktardedness” when they lived across the street from you and might be good at punches. However, this same proximity was also unfortunately responsible for the birth of the Internet Tough Guy.
iTough.
But don’t confuse the ITG with the modern troll; though they are definitely related, they are very different things. The term “Internet Tough Guy” is mostly used these days to refer to anybody that brags about their physical prowess, starts arguments or just generally acts like an asshole. But the true ITG was a much different, much sadder monster: He was literally a guy that misunderstood the virtues of online communication to the extent that he would threaten to fight you physically in the real world for online disagreements. Experts differ on exactly how the ITG got Internet access in the first place: Some reasonably speculate that he must be experimenting with it at a friends house on a drunken dare; some insist that he must’ve stumbled onto a computer by accident and, assuming it to be a broken television, just started punching angry letters into the giant alphabetic remote; while still others somewhat controversially theorize that the ITG become lost in between dimensional planes and somehow actually physically stumbled into cyberspace after taking a wrong turn while trying, and ultimately failing, to find his dick with both hands.
But regardless of how he found it, the ITG always ended up doing the same thing: He would gladly and immediately offer up his physical address, try to arrange travel plans and attempt to set appointments to fight online entities for any and all offenses. He was like a human Blackberry of Assault. Ah, I can just see them now–so stupid and furious that they’d crack open their desktops with a tire iron and, upon finding the circuit boards, assumed that they must be the cities in which the tiny smartasses that plagued them lived.
Somewhere in here lives xXxGaryBearxXx, and you’re going to punch his entire block when you find him.
As Internet connections evolved, local BBSs became less prevalent and more and more was done with browsers. And with the popularity of the browsers came increased national and even international interaction, so the ITG was forced to evolve; it simply became impractical to offer to fight all comers when the man disagreeing with your assessment of exactly how much CCR rocks (you say “the most” while he insists it’s merely “a lot”) lives across the country or even the globe. So the ITG became less of a physical threat, but he still needed a place to take out his aggression. He became more of a refined typist; he now tossed out homophobic slurs and racial epithets instead of theoretical IOUs for punches.
He was still mostly ignored, and the Internet was still mostly polite, but people began to see the benefit of the ITG: Now that he wasn’t penciling “fisticuffs w/ queer” into his scheduler, he was free to make all the vague threats and insults he wanted with nobody to call him out for his lack of follow-through. More and more people saw his antics, and realized that the Internet could not only be a place to pleasure oneself to sad IRC orgies, it could also be an outlet for your rage with absolutely no consequences. Slowly, the ITG transformed from a rare beast into a common occurrence. He was a buoy of vitriol drifting into ports of reason and relevance and spewing obscenities at anything unfortunate enough to bump into him. Soon it was commonplace to find a few angry comments on everything from provocative atheist manifestos to innocuous recipes for macaroni salad (musterd?! WTF only fuckfags use mustrd shitbrew assbulge).
“More liek musTARDED am i rite lololwtfbbqroflmol”
Eventually, there were so many forums on which to vent rage that they actually began to outpace the amount of rage that needed venting. In short, there were a dozen toilets available for every one verbal shit. What happens when there are more venues for you to vent in than there is need to compensate for a tiny penis? What else could they do? ITGs began to phone it in. Instead of page-long linguistic ragequits, shorter insulting comments cropped up, seemingly only there to establish the presence of an insult. But, of course, even if you deposit the tiniest, most insignificant bag of poop on a man’s doorstep, the end result is the same: He still has to deal with your shit.
Owners and operators of these venues–from bloggers to forum moderators–still became upset at even the most store-brand-quality of insults, and responded with the same vigor as they would any other attack. It was a complete reversal from how it all started: Instead of the occasional virtual Chuck Norris bashing on keys with his forehead because his fingers simply could not contain his fury, casual assholes (or ‘casholes,’ if you will) reigned supreme, and the true fury was now being espoused by the victims. It required so little effort on the part of the provoker, yet required so much effort on the part of the provokee that it was a net gain; they lost more than you put out. It mattered little that there was no actual benefit to be had from this practice; a fucking gain’s a gain, right? You’re winning! Something! Fucking finally!
“Who’s my special little asshole? It’s you!”
The appeal was easy to see: If you can’t whittle a toy horse, knit a blanket, write a poem or play an instrument, at least you might be able to destroy some amount of the free time possessed by the people that can. If the productive members of society who are usually out there creating something–no matter how small or trivial–instead used their time yelling at you for slights that you put absolutely no effort into, then they were also not producing. And if they were not producing, and you were not producing, then voila! You’re suddenly just as valuable to society as they are! Instead of simply being “lesser than” the average person, now you’re finally “lesser than or equal to“! You’re no better, but at least they’re a little worse! And thus trolling was born. It was easy, it provided a largely illusory benefit (but a benefit nonetheless) and best of all - you’re ruining something! They always say, “It’s easier to destroy than it is to create,” and while most people saying that intend it to be a bad thing, you, the troll, see it as a benefit.
They’re totally right! It is easier, isn’t it? Aren’t easier things better?
It’s like you practically have no choice but to type “meh” or “fag” or better yet (and I’m only giving this to you because I love you) you could combine the two.
You could type “mehfag.”
Because hey, what else do you say when you’ve found something to be of average quality that is also written by a fag? Necessity is the mother of invention, after all; it’s hardly your fault that everything fails, is it?
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Commenters, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
My Field Trip to the Large Hadron Collider
The Cracked.com Open Bar: An Incomplete Recollection
The 8 Manliest Images on the Internet
A Touching Children's Book Written While High
Television and Film Industry: I Dislike You and Your Opinions, and etc.
The End Of The Internet: The Daily Nooner (EST)!
Internet Tattoos Are A Great Idea: The Daily Nooner (EST)!
The Drunk Idiot’s Guide to Twitter
Nancy Grace: Better Than A Baby Murderer
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November 11th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Its M.r T! I PIDDY DA FOO!!!!!!
November 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
everyone act like i said something terribly offensive
November 8th, 2009 at 8:32 am
fffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggg
meh
November 8th, 2009 at 3:06 am
DONGTACULAR ARTICLE !!! However you’re still a mehfag-kinda douche…
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:49 am
This commentary is too hostile. The anonymity and convenience that the internet has to offer creates a venue over which people who simply disagree but want to be heard will rage. Your condescension of ITGs and people who casually use the internet gives absolute merit to those who would destroy your virtual communities. The only difference between you and I is that I’m in the comment section, making me a troll and you a - well, I guess that’s up to you to define.
- Cracked Rules
October 30th, 2009 at 10:12 am
The thing about trolls is that it’s incredibly difficult to ignore them. YOU might be able to do so, but what about the person next to you, or even the person next to them and so on? The main issue is that trolls aren’t really something removed from us, they ARE us. Take one of my friends for example: decent guy on the street, raging asshole on the web.
Trolls are more or less normal… or not so normal people who have embraced the Internet’s freedom in often destructive ways. The anonymity of the web allows us to really say what we may be thinking without the issue of consequence. And I’m sure everyone here has lost their shit in public but held back on the full force of their emotion. When you’re under the protection of a handle, that issue disappears. So while in public, one may be thinking “fucktard”, on the web it comes out as easily as anything we would say.
As our immediate thoughts are unstructured until given context… it lends itself to “saying” things that range from vague sensibility to disturbing batshit insanity. It’s not an issue of good or bad trolls. What you call win, another may call fail. There’s really little that can be about it.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:36 am
trolls are like gay or something and i hate em
October 27th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Fighting with losers like trolls just no use in it. They think they are wining by fighting with 50 other posters. More like fighting a losing battle.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I done my studies as well. It’s scary & sick to think now days we have people who ruin people’s time by writting dumb stuff. So I guess they don’t really relize how dumb they are !
October 27th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
So control yourself if you can’t then maybe you need locked up because anyone who writes non-sense topics on stuff has something wrong. I would also like to point out those little trolls are cowards in real-life as well. Look it up.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
As far as I care most trolls have no life & Can’t even wipe there own a**es Also in need of mental help.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Yeah ! Some people on here are trolling now. I find it annoying & Dumb. It just shows there ignorance and only few people will be there buddies & back them up online. Do these people not relize people hate them & Think they are dumb? I have one account most trolls have a few. But if you look up on trolls you’ll find many have mental issues. Don’t fight with them because they are just clueless .Report them to the authorities or someone. They live in a dream world most don’t live in reality or even know what reality is. If you report them they may get a dose of reality & need it for sure. They won’t stop trust me even when you ignore it gets worse with there ignorance just spewing out. All ages troll . Most is seen as in teens . Teens are knowen more to do it does not mean adults do it because they do as well. All ages do. Trolls write non topic stuff or even go on different accounts following you around ranting. Those types don’t have a clue. There are laws for these types of things it does get out of hand 90 % of the time which it is called stalking/harsement. Most states by the age of 15 or 16 they can give a reality check by charging you as an adult or giving you a harsh sentence may not be long as adults . It will be enough to make you think twice before breaking laws.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Excellent essay, very well done. Unfortunate that such a well written essay cannot end the madness we’ve come to know as trolling, but good nonetheless.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Excellent essay, unfortunate such a good essay cannot end the madness we’ve come to know as trolling. Nevertheless, bravo good sir, you have written well.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Puts almost half of all the messages beneath the articles in just the right light. Now write another political piece!
October 6th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
this article is dildos
October 4th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Like conflict in general, trolls are a necessary part of the Internet.
It’s like, sure, World Peace sounds nice, but you’d have less reason to shoot guns. And what about the war games? Plus it would get boring after a while. It’s the same with trolls. If everyone on the Internet acted nice, or even worse, totally serious and the dumb things they say 100% of the time, the Internet would actually be a shittier place.
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 am
[...] Iivi Massolt ja teine Tiit Hennostelt. Ühe super vaimuka ja parajalt lühikese ja lööva artikli trollismi arengust internetis leidis ükspäev aga Tarmo, soovitan ka seda lugeda. Üks tuttav aga edastas väga huvitava, [...]
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:45 am
If comments serve no purpose, then why do you read them. And what does everyone have against trolls anyway. They’re funny.
September 29th, 2009 at 6:33 am
sad how much time was wasted by this site.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:13 am
great article! i lol’d all over.
September 19th, 2009 at 4:56 am
mehfag
September 9th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
…lolmehfagzorz…
That is all.
September 6th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
i’m so using mehfag because it exists
September 6th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Want to find a tall partner??? Then go to ————Tallfinder.c-o-m ——–where you can mingle with tall singles, tall beautiful women and tall handsome men from around the world….
September 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
This article likes buttsex.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Actually, you are all mistaken. Troll. Trolls Eat goats. Trolls get your goat. In short, cybertrolls eat cybergoats and live under network bridges.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:09 am
To be fair, who the hell does put mustard on macaroni? (or celery or what appears to be salmon for that matter?)
August 27th, 2009 at 2:55 am
“So he decides to critique how your saying it”
It’s “how YOU’RE saying it”, faggot.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
And on the left, we see trolls feeding on an article they think is about them before they crash in a sewer; aren’t those silly shits vain? (and funny).
August 25th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Methinks you are all gender-confused
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
You forgot the ITG who doesn’t like what your saying, can’t quite figure out why himself; So he decides to critique how your saying it, correcting your spelling, grammar, and even capatilization.
mehfag
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
poopnose
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
[...] You could type “mehfag.” [...]
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
But seriously: can we not agree that mustard in macaroni salad fills us with complete and RIGHTEOUS rage?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
mehfag, fliend
August 20th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
fgg ftgygtfyvgtybygthbtyghtgty6tgfytygyhguhgtnbyhnbjnhtbj
forehead typing
August 19th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
RAGGHHH!! FUCKING STUPID MUTHA FUCKAS!!!! ARGH!!!!! I LOVE THIS ARTICLE BUT I HATE THOSE DAMN E THUGS!!! Haha, just kidding everyone. 11/5
August 19th, 2009 at 9:01 am
I’ll kick your ass
August 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Cranky bitchy ho!
August 18th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Shat da fuck up!
August 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Kylemonkey on Youtube FTW
August 18th, 2009 at 11:18 am
You all suck FUCKING POOP!
August 18th, 2009 at 11:16 am
… Hey Renstimpyfan077, nice one! How ’bout this:
Poopin’ Da ‘Poopin!
August 18th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Hey Oveneise, how about this:
Are you a FUCKING oveneise… Like meeeeEEE?
August 18th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Ello I am bonghorlio king of bunholio. Do you have some TP for my bunghole?
Are you an oveneise… like meeeeEEE?
August 18th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Blandure: Ha, ha, ha, ha….Feelings hurt, eh? ANY person who spends their time trying to go into a situation to cause people to have conflict against one another actually goes by much more descriptive names. Let’s list them shall we? Tosser, loser, knob, idiot, time-waster, sad, useless…Those are just a few. Did you know such people exist in real life and guess what? There is nothing defensible in their actions. They have such low self-esteem and such lack of awareness that they’d even go so far as to write a paragraph or two on the web to defend others like themselves……
August 18th, 2009 at 2:34 am
mehfag
August 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
mehfag
August 17th, 2009 at 3:38 am
Hehehe, I saw what you did at the end there, Robert. Clever! ^_^
August 17th, 2009 at 1:35 am
Hi
I am IRSHAD in MBA 3rd sem from Banglore.this site has given me so much information of which i have a great need and i was fond of. This site has given me the information which i don’t know till my masters. this is really a great acheivement the internet has provided to the world.i really thank this site.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Rage + laziness: a winning combination. At least it makes the comments easier to spot and ignore.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:39 am
They exist in great numbers on xbox live as well unfortunately although affectionately referred to as OTF (Online Tough Guys) by me. And they range from ones that will offer to come and fight you over it to ones that just waste airwaves spouting random shit. The reason I mostly leave my headset turned off. Unfortunately this means I miss out on meeting cool people actually have something to contribute to the game. So, Brockway, I feel your pain. You couldn’t have put it any better.
August 12th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Am I right to assume you will be Googling “mehfag” in the coming hours?
I’ll try to post it somewhere for you.
August 12th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
after a long day of feeding my geriatric dog smelly shit food and fighting back the urge to vomit from a fresh whiff of the stuff, this article made me truly happy. thank you cracked, you brighten my day. <3
August 12th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
How disappointing to see every annoyance on the internet lumped under the heading of “troll” just because it’s easy. Most of the people you described are flamers, internet tough guys, and griefers. In all fairness, most griefers call themselves “trolls” while mindlessly dropping copypasta from 4chan all over the place when they’re not too busy being the cancer that is slowly killing the internet. Trolling isn’t when you show up somewhere over and over again, posting shit, and generally making everyone sick of you.
A troll is someone who gets people to fight each other. Their primary targets are people who take themselves too seriously, because those are the people who let themselves be drawn into a psychotic and ultimately worthless online shitstorm. This is not something any bitter idiot can do. It’s certainly not something where the bar’s set so low any reaction could count as success.
Of course, when you people water down the meaning even more than you’ve watered down “hero” and “terrorist” you just make actual trolling easier.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Hello everyone,
I found a great dating site______MillionaireCupid.org_____
The best dating club for seeking the rich singles, sexy beauties and even hot celebs..
what’s the most important is:you dont have to be a millionaire.but you can meet one.
I think everyone need to meet some miracle after all the terrible stuff in the news and the economy .You should check it out!!!
August 11th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
urmehfag shtye sucka s balls omfg, losr wtf learn how to DISS all whatup n knoe ou dont type good shitballsassaoiGH#)Q*GHQ$)*HGW$W.
What up.
August 11th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
“It’s hard to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room, especially when he’s screaming rage-fueled obscenities into your face and bathing you in his excrement. So let’s finally acknowledge it: That’s right, it’s time to talk about…”
… Cracked forum administrators!
“comment trolls.”
Damn!
August 11th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
your gay lol
August 11th, 2009 at 10:06 am
wow, i think you missed the point of this article, and by your very reaction i think you should read it again until you understand it and understand why i’m saying this, and then headdesk until you die.
August 10th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
youfag
August 10th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
All of you who put “mehfag” are not clever or funny for typing it so shut the fuck up.
August 10th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
mehfag
August 10th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
“More liek musTARDED am i rite lololwtfbbqroflmol”
bwahahahaha
August 10th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
brilliant as usual
August 10th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
u guys r all fags roflmfao
August 10th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
“I already see a couple of macho people acting tough. B/tard for example… does that stand for bitchtard? I mean I can think up a better name for assholes who act like badass’ on the interwebzors”
target alert. the uninformed and easily inflamed are as responsible as the trolls.
August 9th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
mehfag
August 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
“This article is perfect.
I’m getting so fucking sick of trolls- hiding behind the safe cover of the internet, pounding their fucking hands into the keyboard.
fucking pathetic.”
We are fuelled by your rage.
August 9th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
mehfag.
(lol)
August 9th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Wow. I have to admit, this is one of the most intelligent comment sections Ive ever seen, though Im sure some sad, insignifigant soul got the illusion of importance by typing “first!” at the beginning. Its pathetic, though, that even after reading this articlethere are still some true Cracked haters on here
August 9th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@Paul
don’t make the mistake of thinking there is some actual motivation behind the mindless trolling of 4chan. It is literally just a bunch of 15-year-olds with no other way to express their rage
August 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
“So what happens when a troll faces off against another troll?”
4chan.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
This article is perfect.
I’m getting so fucking sick of trolls- hiding behind the safe cover of the internet, pounding their fucking hands into the keyboard.
fucking pathetic.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I have a theory about trolls, spawned by a little too much time on 4chan.
I think that many trolls consider themselves a part of the internet collective, Anonymous. These trolls think it is their duty to either ruin or help this entity’s coolness/intelligence/whathaveyou. Those who want to ruin it copy-paste fucktarded comments everywhere. Those who want to help it flame all the retards who can’t spell “coincidence” in hopes that Anonymous (which they are a part of, the egotistical bastards) will be able to make a better name for itself.
August 8th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Brockways sa stoopid fag humper. *Grunt*, *Fart*
August 8th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Brockways sa stoopid fag humper! *grunt*
August 8th, 2009 at 12:16 am
So what happens when a troll faces off against another troll?
August 7th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Truly brilliant.
Perfect analysis. It’s quite enlightening in its sociological understanding of internet interaction. My hat off to you, Mr. Brockway.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
is there a reason that so many of the cracked guys are writing about the comment sections? iv read about 5 already. all of them are hilarious but its seems like they’re recycling ideas around.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
@ Mebbe Nawt
Wasn’t flaming just pointing something out.
@ yonayoung
No trolls on xbox live are interactive trolls, the worst kind are the ones that are quite good in a game such as gears, they both insult you and rape you score-wise and in your downed pooper.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
are people on xbox live the same kind of trolls?
August 7th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
mehfag
August 7th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
fag
August 7th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
hhhmmmm… very interesting outlook on this whole fiasco.
Very true tho… I’ve never really understood what’s so “threatening” about comment vomit tho… It’s simply words on a screen in the long run. lol.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Fucking stupid niggers. I’ll still beat anyone up. See me in Australia.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am
hahahahhaha! i love it. comments too!
August 7th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I am a troll and I must say - god damn, this is true lol!
Also fag
August 7th, 2009 at 9:04 am
@ Cpt. Captain
Don’t start a flame war! I can’t bear another day of reading a comment that accuses everyone of being a gay faggy fucktard and helping the communists.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:43 am
lololwtfbbqroflmol… heheh “bbq”
August 7th, 2009 at 8:10 am
I can’t believe you said that Roo even after “or you could type “mehfag” into the text box below whe-oh you’re already doing that? Well, aren’t you clever.”
I mean its practically “Say ‘mehfag’ in the comment box if you’re an idiot”.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:25 am
mehfag
August 7th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Are you fucking kidding me? Another fucking cracked article about “assholes on the internet”.
“The Top 8 Jerks Who Comment”
“The Top 9 Assholes Who Are Mean On The Internet”
Between hearty, puffed chest beating lists about “Top 9 Stupid Things That Idiots Believe ‘Cause They’re Stupid” whether it’s about mysteries, monsters or cancer or more rightwing, McKinney bullshit, cracked has become a one joke pony and that pony is retarded.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:20 am
cool article this and sooo true. I kinda miss the old school ITG tho! I always figured they were so ready for a fight because they needed to prove to themselves they weren’t gay for using the internet, even when everybody else WAS. And there was always at least one ITG in every chatroom with the name “hardcore”, or “hardcore99″ if some fag copied him. Ahhh…It was a simpler time…
On a completely separate note, I think the words “dongtastic” and “dongtacular” are just fucking stupid. Not funny or ironic stupid, just stupid stupid. Seriously…dongs? okay.
August 7th, 2009 at 3:03 am
tl;dr
August 7th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Looks like a rolex submariner
August 7th, 2009 at 2:44 am
tl;dr Trolls are bad, mkay!
August 7th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Come and join hot tall dating club ___Tallloving.com___ has lots of hot girls there! besides, it’s hot modelss, milfs, sexy chick s and handsome young men and chicks dating club!!LOL Don’t miss out!!
August 6th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
“musterd?! WTF only fuckfags use mustrd shitbrew assbulge”
Hah, I hope FoodNetwork has somewhere to post that.
August 6th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
less history, more seanbaby-esque insults
August 6th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I already see a couple of macho people acting tough. B/tard for example… does that stand for bitchtard? I mean I can think up a better name for assholes who act like badass’ on the interwebzors. Oh i mean if you need me to bring this down to a lower level of intelligence I can.. simply put… people like you are also known as Dustfucks. Anyway awesome article man… good job with it ^^
August 6th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I try my best to stray from the idiocy of most comments sections.. Also, I find it helps to only look at them once, it makes you not realize that people hate you…
August 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Rocks fall, everybody dies.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Not funny, but great article aniway
August 6th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I do not give one whit about your words, you lover of the same sex.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Astrolounge Says:
Henceforth, anytime I find a troll I feel compelled to respond to (possibly due to some kind of blood clot in my brain) I shall simply reply to him: “Mehfag”….If he won’t put in effort, neither should we.
———–
But who wants to look at 20 pages of internet comments with nothing but mehfag. Sometimes you got to get up and put the effort into insulting the trolls. Anything beyond mehfag will be beyond their comprehension, but at least the rest of us will be entertained.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
This wasn’t funny per se, although there was a fair amount of humor. As I see it, this was a well written essay at the development of the internet trolll.
Bravo, well done Mr. Brockway. I would like to give your article the ultimate acclaim and call it dongtastic. However, it fails the dongtastic measurements in one crucial area. There are no boobs on this page, and I can not in good conscience award your article without at least one good pair of breasts. It is kind of a letdown, really. The sidebar articles of “Lesbians” sitting there right next to “Vanessa Hudgeons” is close, but still not sufficient to be awarded the dongtastic. Perhaps it was a semidongtastic article.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
i miss my old bbs.
this is an awesome article.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Excellent analysis!
August 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I remember the days of BBS and ITGs. It is true you almost never see anyone threatening to beat the crap out of you(once you go to the address listed by them of coarse) anymore. Now people try to punch you with their words(word puncher!). Most people have a strong chin by now, but some people just can’t take it and they have to argue with the trolls, feeding them and making them more powerful. But only in the trolls mind does the power increase. Great article. A little walk down memory lane.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
mehfag
August 6th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
LET ME EAT YOUR BRAINS!!
August 6th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Suck my 8==D
August 6th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I see 264 comments on here, 200 of these comments are probably angry trolls whoring it out for attention.
August 6th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Absolutely brilliant!
August 6th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I knew it Circuitboards are little cities with tiny people!!! I like to think that the plane is the Ethernet connection XP
August 6th, 2009 at 11:54 am
The comment section for an article called “The Evolution of a Troll” has become a troll warzone.
And I think that’s exactly what was intended. You’re a genius, Brockway.
@)—–
August 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am
You all suck, I hate you.
Now give me twenty fucking reasons why you don’t suck.
P.S. This took me less than half a minute to type. Enjoy sitting there for two hours coming up with enough stuff to trounce my twenty-second troll.
August 6th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Cockgay? More like RagingFagTron3000! Ha! Sorry, actually, those comments did make me happy. As did Lobsters and Fishs. Good stuff Brockway! A gold star for the paragraph about how the ITG found his way online. I cried a little bit.
August 6th, 2009 at 11:19 am
@Brockway
I dislike you as a person
August 6th, 2009 at 11:10 am
That’s great! You’re totally right! That’s why I destroy things! It makes me feel better, and I never knew why! It’s because I’m a useless piece of shit, and by destroying things (people, whatever), I make them useless as well!. But, on the other hand, they’re just words, and what? The internet is your life? But you are right, that’s why I do so many fucked up things to people, animals and things. And that’s why it makes me feel good. I guess I should have listened to all those shrinks.
August 6th, 2009 at 11:07 am
That was an excellent article. Although I don’t feel right saying that. Prick.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:44 am
lol
August 6th, 2009 at 10:24 am
mehfag
August 6th, 2009 at 9:21 am
@painmakeyourway: that, my friend, is Kimbo Slice… look him up on youtube, you wont be disappointed
August 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Odium says:
So please, even if you only have a few functioning brain cells left in your head, try and exercise them once in awhile. It’ll do you some good.
____________
Kitty says: Why should anyone else bother “exercising their brain cells” when you clearly have not exercised yours?
August 6th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Henceforth, anytime I find a troll I feel compelled to respond to (possibly due to some kind of blood clot in my brain) I shall simply reply to him: “Mehfag”. Thank you Robert Brockway, you beautiful man.
Now we all need not allow our time to be sunk away as the troll wishes. If he won’t put in effort, neither should we.
August 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I’d actually say the average troll’s mentality is something more along the lines of, “Notice me! dear god someone pay attention to me!”
People respond to stupid rants, racial slurs, intentional misunderstandings. And if someone responds, then fuck, they must be important.
Who cares if it’s bad attention as long as it exists at all right?
August 6th, 2009 at 6:50 am
that guy in the picture looks positively frightening.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:23 am
oh well
August 6th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Michaelx, I’m totally trying to blow myself right now. It’s masturbation taken to the next level.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I wonder how many comments Brockway reads before getting bored of the endless repetition of “mehfag” and “No, the real definition of “troll” is . . . ”
I’m pretty ancient (26) and I didn’t have Internet access until I was about 16, so I feel like I missed out on a wonderous era where the Internet didn’t whittle away my intelligence. (And yet here I am, reading and commenting. I drank the Kool-Aid, and drank deep.)
Side note: I had to ask my friend what “tl;dr” meant (see above for reasons) . . . that the phrase does away with spelling the words out, punctuation, and nouns, but uses a semicolon instead of a comma (which would be correct!) just blows my mind.
/end boring comment
August 6th, 2009 at 6:07 am
How many of you litle dweebs are trying to blow yourselves right now? Most, I’ll bet. You go girls!
August 6th, 2009 at 6:03 am
You bunch of fucktarded, cocklicking, ballhandling, queef (sp?) sniffing, salad tossing, pudding farting, dog fucking, inbred, chronically white, fagmeh’s! I’m coming straight to all of your houses and beating your asses senseless! Please start sending in all of your addresses, and I shall be their promptly. While there, I demand my own trailer, and to be fed steak. Thank you.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:54 am
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August 6th, 2009 at 5:47 am
I dont get it,
why does everyone say meh, fagmeh or any variation of it, if ur indecisive about whether you like the article or not, WE DON’T GIVE A FUCK FENCE SITTER!! like it or dont im tired of there fucking comments being filled with “fagmeh, lol haha im so fucking funny aren’t I!?!?!?!”
August 6th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Yeah!
You tell em Brockway
there’s only one way to deal with internet Trolls and thats to murder them with words, cause bruises heal, but you’ll always remember what that internet columest said about your dumb comments on a humor website.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Odium… you win.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:26 am
So final Tally: Everybody loses except for Hazl. That’s what, about 90 percent? Ninety percent of trolls are incapable of recognizing the very act they base their identities on. Ninety percent of trolls will respond with the same anger they espouse as ridiculous when confronted in a similar fashion.
In a nutshell: 9 out of 10 trolls are too stupid to be even considered self-aware.
Good study, guys! Thanks for participating.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Gay
August 6th, 2009 at 4:38 am
So, trolls exist because of a vast inferiority complex agains the supposedly productive and creative average person, hmm?
Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit.
The average person works a 50 hour white/blue collar job with no purpose but to earn their employer a little more dough. They come home and stare vaguely at their TV/computer/blank wall. The average person does jack shit as far as advancing society. They don’t have the imagination, or the energy.
No, see, trolls exist because, deep down, we’re still all the same paranoid tribalists we were back in the Stone Age. Except, without limited resources to fight over, all our squabbles are down to increasingly trivial stuff. They look different, burn ‘em. That guy’s music taste sucks, I’m gonna threaten to kill his family. Half of all trolling is really flaming. The other half spans from teasing to really nasty stuff (blackmail, humiliation). And it’s all there because we’re a species of insecure, sadistic bastards.
So please, even if you only have a few functioning brain cells left in your head, try and exercise them once in awhile. It’ll do you some good.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:04 am
It doesn’t, really. The practice is basicly just for a more simple clean up.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Huh. Do people really jack off into their socks? How does that improve the experience?
August 6th, 2009 at 3:24 am
I understand your frustration Brockway, however every time I read a comment section, expecially from articles ABOUT comments, a loose another small peice of faith that I still have in the human race.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Can we do “fehg”?
August 6th, 2009 at 2:42 am
fag
August 6th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Brockway, I can whittle a toy horse, knit a blanket, write a poem and play an instrument, and I still think this article sucked major ass. Seriously, is it that hard to actually make a joke in one of your article, or do you enjoy text-spazzing your way through everything you write. This post is a perfect example of people taking the internet too seriously.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Long with little funnies. MehSnore
August 6th, 2009 at 2:03 am
YOU FUCKING SUCK. WRITING FOR CRACKED ISN’T A JOB YOU FUCKING PUSSY. WHY DON’T YOU COME OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD AND WRANGLE SHEEP LIKE TEH REST OF US, YOU FUCKING N00BFAG.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:55 am
I wonder if, back in the early years of the internet, anyone has ever actually called someone on their bullshit and went to their home to whoop that ass. I can’t recall any news about that. It was usually more along the lines of stalkers and the like that you read about. But never a pay-per-view UFC-type event where two guys disagreed online about Demi Moore’s ass and then set up a showdown.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Lame. Learn2write, fag.
August 6th, 2009 at 12:04 am
To smackee618: that was really clever. I actually laughed when I read that. Not only because of what it sounds like but because I can picture Apple turning anything and everything into a product with i.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
I loved the reference to Boondock Saints. Made my day.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
First post!
August 5th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Loved it, you must’ve wept writing it though, knowing that trolls will do the same thing in this comments section.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
meh
8====D
August 5th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
lul. on natgeo documentaries on youtube i always say “this is definitely in nigeria” and people would be like YOU IDIOT ITS IN CANADA. I MEAN BRITAIN.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
i just have to say lol_alf, the whole stickman blowing himself thing i never thought about. kudos, thats awesome.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Unlike Youtube, I can post anything I want and no one can thumbs-down me or mark me as spam. Have you ever noticed that this symbol
&
looks like a stickman trying to blow himself?
August 5th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Someday mehfag will be copyrighted by Apple, purveyor of all things internet. Fans of Apple will flock to buy the iMehfag. (say it out loud folks, it’ll come to you)
August 5th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Meh, fag.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I find the comments on this article and the pointless wastes of time they are to be funny. The article was pretty good too. (now look, im wasting my time typing this comment too!!)
ps: mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Your first articles were good, but now you’re just starting to sound preachy, especially with that Bible article, Brockway. If I wanted to be preached at about stuff that doesn’t entertain me I’d go somewhere like foxnews.com
mehpreacher
August 5th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
meh
August 5th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
good article… or it would be if you had tried to write something worthwhile versus taking a shit on your keyboard and trying to clean it all off with your nose.
all trolling aside, some of the humor was a little desperate but it was a good article and you could always sleep easy knowing your articles are better than DOB’s.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
It might also help to remember a couple of things about all this. First, this is all about comments only; as an information resource, the net has only improved, and thus has helped to improve countless lives by providing access to that data.
Secondly, if all the dumbasses infesting the net today could be said to have one thing in common, it would be their ancestor: AOL. Before AOL came along, it was impossible for the tards to get online, because most of them can barely draw their own names in crayon, never mind remember an entire modem INIT string. The inaccessibility of the technology is what kept it pleasant for those who were bright enough to access it.
Nowadays, it’s so easy that my laptop will try to connect itself if I let it. It doesn’t even require my input. That’s actually a small annoyance for me, but for the modern mouth-breather, it’s a blessing.
So the next time some little teenage boy is annoying you online, just remember that it’s all because somebody many years ago thought it would be a good idea to make the net accessible to his idiotic forebears.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I miss days when I got retarded comments like lolz omg fag and was able to storm over to their house and punch them in the mouth. People watched what they said. And people who didn’t at least had to be able to back it up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The biggest “achievement” of the 20th century is protecting retards from hurting themselves or being hurt by others. Are these really the kind of people we WANT to protect? But hey, then we wouldn’t have epic FAIL segments and we wouldn’t have the television masterpiece “The Hills” now would we? FACK!!!
August 5th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
trolls didnt spwn from ITG, ITGs came from trolls
August 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
The Internet and a BBS system were two different things in the ’80s. Think of the difference between a school bus (the short one) and a Boeing 747. And neither one had windows. If you were on my BBS that kind of dumbass mistake would get you locked out and I’d blackball your ass with every sysop in the city.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
@someguy
You’re right, but try saying “fagmeh” out loud in a gay bar, and see what might happen…safest to keep it at “mehfag”.
@Hazl
Were you typing your response while staring into a mirror?
@ everyone else
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=august%203%202008&st=cse
I found that article fascinating.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
You’re such a mehfag. This article was mustarded. Go back to being a mehfag with your mehfag friends, mehfag!
August 5th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Is that FilthyRichmond thing real? Because good God, she’s the most hateable person I’ve ever read about.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
The web’s #1 troll = http://www.FilthyRichmond
August 5th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
“He was a buoy of vitriol drifting into ports of reason and relevance and spewing obscenities at anything unfortunate enough to bump into him. Soon it was commonplace to find a few angry comments on everything from provocative atheist manifestos to innocuous recipes for macaroni salad (musterd?! WTF only fuckfags use mustrd shitbrew assbulge).”
I love the way Brockway writes.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
preus, Kitty Genovese was not a Watchmen reference. It actually happened, look it up. Watchmen referenced it.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
@Presus,
You are a mustarded mehfag. The Kitty Genovese thing really happened. It wasn’t just part of Watchmen.
Also, Cockway, I hate you, but XFD @ mustarded.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Great article.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
good article. i always leave a comment and then never look at the comments again.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
all the people who have written ‘mehfag’ are awesomely funny
August 5th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Oh yeah Gabriel really deserves the Mehfag dishonor.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
By the way, I’m for serious. Not joking go die.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Also, as a side note: I came across an ITG once.
ONCE.
He lived right across the street from me, like this article said people did back in the day, and he challenged me to a fight. So I went over to his house and knocked him shitless.
It was funny.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
What s stupid fucking article.. MEH Cracked can do better.
Your a fag
suck my dick,
August 5th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I would type mehfag to insult this article right now, if
A) I wasn’t laughing my ass off,
and
B) I didn’t reserve my better insults for people who deserve them.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Hazl’s inability to identify facetious comments amuses me.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Loved the Watchmen reference in the first paragraph. I wonder how many people got that.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
-kisses brockway on the taint-
OMG Twilight is hawt
August 5th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Great article, but I’m more of a potato salad girl myself…..*waits for the insults*
August 5th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
i think fagmeh has a better ring to it.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
@ all previous posts: you people suck ass. you call that trolling? you think your all so cool, wasting our time reading lameass pathetic attempts at trolling like that go back to fucking nebraska and fuck your uncle, cocksucker. you troll so appallingly ineptly that your mom is fat, that how much you suck. and ive been trolling your mom. even though shes fat. im into that.
anyway, your just playing right into this fucktards playing field by trolling his article, if you wanna really troll him you gonna write actually constructively critical reviews written in grammatically correct, that would really fucking annoy him, haha. so yeah, good job, losers.
aefghm. see what i did there? i alphabetized that motherfucker. if thats not fucking constructive then theres something up your ass which there is anyway.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Mehfag monster cock eating slugworm’s diahrea inducing shit weasel I’ll shove that troll bashing atrocity of a douche of lysol to sterilize your cats up your tainted violated rancid nostril….great article.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I’ll play the part of the 12000th person to say: mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
I don’t know how anyone can something so easy to target at internet trolls and come out with such an unfunny article.
Every time I see a new Brockway article with an interesting title I say to myself, “Man, too bad this will be an unenjoyable wall of text.”
That looks like pretty good macaroni salad though.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I got a HUGE penis and my girlfriend is really super hot and I can beat you up. so give me your address and me and my SUPER SUPER HOT girlfriend and my HUGE penis will come over and and beat you up and come on your dog, and then beat him up 2.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I remember the ITG’s, and the days when you could actually kick them out of a forum or off a site. *sigh*
August 5th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
mehfag
just kidding. Great text, trolls are everywhere now, whenever I read something written by one of them, I always imagine how they look like, and the image that always comes to my head is of that pathetic guy who couldn’t get over that fact that nobody ever liked him because he’s a jerk
August 5th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
lol Donald Boston lol
August 5th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
It’s funny cause if there is an actual, non-joking troll in the comments section everyone will just think they are joking around and not take them seriously lol.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
is it weird I read this just after mowing the lawn and reading the doctor chaos (it’s PROFESSOR chaos, shitbird!) rant in your transformers script comments? I think it’s weird
August 5th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
You guys sure have been doing a lot of pieces on people who populate the comments section lately. You’re writing articles about commentors … for people who comment on articles. Any other ides floating around the offiec there maybe? Like, oh … I dunno … maybe something we give a shit about?
August 5th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
meh
August 5th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
oh and…@Cockasurous Rex
nice name, what does it say about YOU?
August 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
how dare you, brockway? i will come to where you are and LITERALLY BEAT YOU WITH MY HANDS. us ITGs are a leet fighting force. you just stirred the shitpot with a turd ladle, broseph.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Interestingly, nobody seemed to hate this article, at least not in the comments I read. So let me get the ball rolling: while adequately written, it was not particularly memorable. Normally, if an article is good, I would write a comment mentioning something that was said in the article, but in this situation I cannot think of anything being mentioned. And yet I must comment!
August 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Someday mehfag will be copyrighted by Apple, purveyor of all things internet. Fans of Apple will flock to buy the iMehfag. (say it out loud folks, it’ll come to you)
August 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
i can usually ignore the trolls, but some times they say some shit that’s retarded AND offensive, which is the worst possible combination ever. i don’t mind offensive, but when you add retarded to the mix? kinda pisses me off. only a little bit though.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
So if this article kills all the trolls, won’t the comments section just turn into a spambot channel?
August 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
@witmereric Says:
Well done, Comments Section, well done. The article was just a very funny setup for a punchline that could only come from you.
Lobster’s contribution was my fave.
_____
lol me too for some reason
August 5th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I’d like to mention that some topics attract enough good comments that the trolls are drowned out. The best example I can think of offhand is the article about video games that qualify as modern art. (Don’t remember the title word-for-word, sorry.)
August 5th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Good article.
Also, to Gabriel:
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I get a vibe of seething hatred and veiled loathing from reading this article. This here is how you do internet hate!
August 5th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
meh.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Indeed, bitter people can certainly do things.
However, trolls can’t. Let me familiarize you with the concept of a Venn Diagram. I want you to draw a big circle. Just do it in MS Paint, it doesn’t have to be on paper. We’ll call that circle, ‘Bitter People’. Then another circle that loops into it, sort of like the Olympics symbol. Linking rings. We’ll call that one ‘Productive People’. See that area where both circles cover? Thats ‘Bitter, Productive People’. But of course, we’re not talking about ALL bitter people, are we? Tons of bitter, productive people aren’t trolls. So we’ll draw a little circle inside the ‘Bitter People’ circle, WELL away from the overlap. That one is ‘Trolls’.
Or, if you prefer, we could call them what they are: “People who have either completely failed at doing anything constructive - or who have never even tried - and therefore found plenty of time to find their contemporaries on 4chan who regard any act of creation as a personal affront to themselves, as though anything that doesn’t measure up to their standards of things that ‘other people should produce’ is worthy of pure contempt, until they spend so much time doing so that they lose any ability at all to do anything useful and therefore become even more bitter and upset about anyone else doing anything that isn’t created specifically to pander to them’. But of course, ‘Trolls’ is a lot shorter, so there’s that.
Honestly, any group of people who equate themselves with ‘hackers’ because they know how to use IRC or an anonymizer clearly have the ability only to succeed at anything by setting the bar low enough that 99% of humanity can slide over. Creating success by redefining failure as nearly impossible! That’s not ‘productive’. So yes, the rantings of trolls are compensation. It boils down to ‘I am good at NOTHING, but irritating people until I become the center of attention and then laughing about it is something, so yay! I’m successful now!”
There’s a sort of backlash from retards where suddenly every troll is a 24 year old young success story, sipping Cristal while getting blowjobs from supermodels, but inexplicably getting his kicks from posting ‘lol fucktard’ on 4chan. They don’t realize that for EVERYONE ELSE ON THE INTERNET we realize that the two don’t mesh. It’s like proposing that on the weekends John McCain puts on leather chaps, smokes meth and hangs out outside of NASCAR stadiums offering free footjobs. Even if someone were to propose it in seriousness, literally EVERYONE that they mentioned it to (even if amused) would realize that it was fucking stupid.
This article was dead-on. I mean, the end of it expresses exactly what trolls are, now. “Meh”, “tl;dr” and the like all say one thing. “I am actually incapable of even producing a coherent response to the above, so instead, unlike anyone who isn’t a complete asshat who merely ignores what they don’t read, I shall take a few seconds from my day to tell this person that I consider my time rickrolling people, posting lolcats and linking to Encyclopedia Dramatica to be too valuable to spend 2 minutes reading 4 paragraphs of words.”
These are not the activities of productive people. Not one non-troll on earth buys that bullshit. And we all know at least a couple in person to compare the rest of them to. You show me a Nobel Prize-winning troll and I will cut off and eat my leg.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Great article, very funny. If it’s alright with you, I’ll be using “casholes” in all my sentences from now on!
August 5th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
i just read part of a huge text wall of baby rage
u mad?
August 5th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Hilah, I just got the reference. Yeah, that was an incredibly messed up story and proves my point exactly.
Sometimes the internet is the only safe place for people.
Take for instance someone who is on the brink of suicide and is crying out for help, I’ve seen people take this as an advantage and write something encouraging them, or telling them that they are in fact, useless and ugly and whatever.
I find it hard to believe that these people can’t see the impact their words can have on another, and people that continually do things like that should be reported without a doubt.
August 5th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
The thing that pisses me off the most about trolls is the fact that sometimes they have way more affect in the real world than they deserve. Nobody likes a troll, but we mostly recognize them for what they are and get on with our day. Then there is the time when someone writes something (on their blog, on a forum) that is of a sensitive nature and someone writes something incredibly hurtful. It makes me wonder about the person on the other side. Even a fool can realize when is an inappropriate time to say something and the fact that they do anyways, makes me wonder about what kind of people they are in real life.
August 5th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
and by “as a whole” I mean “a pretty white middle class girl dying and the media suddenly giving a shit”
August 5th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Kitty Genovese was one of the first examples of apathy as it effected the nation as a whole. It helped to further the idea that has been basically proven, that the more people there are around you, the less of a chance there is that someone will save you. People defuse responsibility and the more people they can put blame on, the less they have to carry themselves. It’s sad, but very true. The internet is a great place for this to happen because there is always someone else to let the responsibility lie with. Trollers should control themselves, or other people on the forum should report the trollers or the people in charge of the domain need to watch for the trollers. Everyone expects someone else to do it and that way it never gets done.
August 5th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
A medium-sized article that was actually interesting, and not actually that fucking long; read, and still took the time to post a comment in the little box that didn’t include an insult of the author of this well-written article.
Or: AM-SATWAI,ANATFL;R,ASTTTTPACITLBTDIAIOTAOTW-WA
Feel free to create a new meme, douchebags.
August 5th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Dear Everybody Responding to Chesthair (or whatever his name was,)
Please stop getting trolled by a troll trolling an article trolling trolls. Just…just stop it. Not because it’s bad, it’s just all too confusing.
Dear Everybody Praising the Watchmen Reference,
Kitty Genovese was not a sick fictional anecdote used to set up the moral dystopia of Moore’s alternate timeline New York. It was a real thing. That actually happened exactly how Rorschach said. The world really IS that horrible!
August 5th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
You’re a very talented writer and this is a great article.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Is improper use of contractions considered poor spelling or poor grammar? Either way our good friend SplintChesthair just exemplified a juicy double shot of “stick-my-fucking-foot-in-my-mouth”-ism TM (Yeah that phrase is fucking trademarked, so you can’t just use that.)
And if his post was actually sarcasm, then, “I’m so sorry man, that was a brilliant execution of bitingly sharp and witty sarcasm.” (Now THAT’S how you do it.)
Anyway, I’ll stop, lest I become that which I beheld. I love you SplintChesthair, I love you DB, I love you everyone! You know who else loves you guys? Jesus! Yep, that’s right, Jesus. He just finished edging my lawn and he’s a really nice guy. Very loving. (Ba-Zing!)
Another great article Brockway. I only get my words punched by YOU (shhh, don’t tell the others.)
August 5th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I love you all. Brockway and the comments section and the lurkers. I love the mehfags and the trolls and the mehfaggers and I hope you all get free beer/cookies/sexual favors forever! You’re all great and every comment, and the article, is awesome.
I love you all more than I’d love a unicorn shitting coke and hookers.
Keep up the great work, everyone! Hugs!
August 5th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Only mehfags say mehfag.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I mean it! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=23&sku=E-CD00263 LICK HER!!!
August 5th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
But as the troll can’t actually see your physical response to his insult, you have to choose to let them know, why bother even responding?
August 5th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The ad I am seeing at the top of this article is for Disney with a big pic of Mickey. For some reason, Mickey looks like a creepy troll next to the “Cracked” logo. I don’t mean that offensively, it is just an observation. I guess I should be glad it is not an ad for anything with Mel Gibson.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Best Brockway in a while.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
wait, that reminds me, who was the columnist before Seanbaby came? (funny guy, though as a WoW player he now fits into one of those 7 categories)
August 5th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
lol, Darclipto. That’s funny
because really no human is significant up to this point, so that 99% is now 100%
August 5th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
is it me or does this seem like the rantings of a guy who thinks those ‘trolls’ can’t do a damn thing so they compensate? Bitter people can obviously do things too, even jackasses. So a bitter jackass (troll) can still do something. Besides, that also depends on which instrument you’re trying to play, the guitar seems overdone as an everyday instrument, especially since douchebags took it over and made some very shitty ‘love’ poems on them that make you cringe as you listen to it. … what was i saying again?
August 5th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Oh, and lol @ Donald Boston
August 5th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I actually had a civlized discussion with another youtube user over my preference of an uncesored version of a song. At no point did it degenerate into name-calling and by the end of it we agreed with each other!
On the other hand, I’ve lost count of the times I have been called a shit-tard or a blumpie giving goatse man fister.
So, up and down then.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Yeah, I think you are putting a little too much thought into the origins of trolls. My thought is that it is human nature to be a worthless piece of shit and that is why 99% of humans are.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Nice article, loved the Watchmen reference.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
a pleasant, well thought out article.
props Brockway
August 5th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
*Generic Troll Comment*
August 5th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
i think Cracked is a pretty cool guy. he writes internet and doesn’t afraid of anything
August 5th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Meh.
August 5th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
To all of you tearing on chesthair back there….. sarcasm is lost completely on you. Congratulations. Good article Brock, you continue to make me laugh.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:58 am
“The Kitty Genovese of language; where intellectual discourse is raped and murdered while everybody watches, yet nobody lifts a finger to stop it.”
Cracked, I love you so much. Rorschach would be proud.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:58 am
OH MAI FUKIN GAWD LUK HOW ORIGNL MY FUCIN NAEM IS!1 I BET NO1 ELSE THOUT OF DAT! IM S0 FUCKN DOPE AND SHIT DAWGS GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
UR ALL MEHFAGS!
August 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
too long
August 5th, 2009 at 11:53 am
fuck all you fucksticks, monkey ass, dog raping, shit eating, ball carressing, cunt shaving, ass tasting, dick squirting, no talent ass clowns.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am
@Doktor0315: it works better as “douchefag”
August 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I´m gonna find you and you´ll learn a lesson or two.
Don´t ever speak (or write) my name (or nick) again you goatfuck!!!
Att.
xXxGaryBearxXx
August 5th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Nice well thought out article. Many may not see it as being as funny as some of your other works, but I’d say the time, effort, and thought put into this more than makes up the difference. Very enjoyable keep up the good work.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:14 am
My apologies, ironicaly this is going to sound a bit troll-y, but something reminded me of the game. I lose! oh wait, look at that, you lose too.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Gimme an address, mehfag craper, just GIVE ME AN ADDRESS!!!!!1
August 5th, 2009 at 10:58 am
There once was a time that I was above posting vitriol, but fuck it, it makes me feel better.
Splint Chesthair, spelling and grammar are two different things you fuckface douchewater cocksmoking jizzhole.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:42 am
“Ah, I can just see them now–so stupid and furious that they’d crack open their desktops with a tire iron and, upon finding the circuit boards, assumed that they must be the cities in which the tiny smartasses that plagued them lived.”
Awesome.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:10 am
mehfag
no seriously, this was very interesting.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Also, Shrek is an ogre.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:04 am
This was surprisingly well written. Seriously, this was great. And I know this isn’t the best day to insist that anything I write is serious (your article’s topic, the sarcastic photoshop contest, the unfaked photos - damn, this day is all about people bullshitting each other, isn’t it? What’s up with that?) but good job and I’ll be here for your next article.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:00 am
You wanna fight me Brockway? Huh? I just finished bench-pressing a Volkswagen after football practice and I swear, I will get on a plane right now and fucking FLY to wherever you are just so a I can kick your ass.
Fuck it, I don’t even NEED a fucking plane. I’ll just fly there using my super steroid powers and tear your ass out of the hole I’m gonna punch THROUGH YOUR CHEST!!!!!!!111!1!!!
I’ll tear your balls off. And then I’ll rip of your big toe and poke your eyes out with it and THEN I’m gonna jam your nuts into your eye sockets (eye-BALLS, get it?) and THEN I’m gonna play beer-pong with your actual eyeballs. After that much ass-kicking I’m gonna have to go load up on carbs for the hardcore sex-fest I’m gonna have WITH YOUR MOM!!!!1!1!
I hope you realize that I’m fucking serious when I say nice article dude. The “fisticuffs w/ queer” bit made me lol. That and “Who’s my special little asshole? It’s you!” Keep ‘em coming
August 5th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Good article Brockway.
@Splint Chesthair
It’s funny you criticize his grammar when you yourself don’t seem to understand the english language either. I believe you meant to say “your grammar is atrocious” and not the incorrect “you’re grammar.” I don’t mean to be an internet asshole but it makes you look really stupid when you try to insist someone’s grammar is incorrect if your grammar is equally atrocious.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Youtube is ground zero for trolls. I did manage to get rid of a troll in one forum by having the rest of the forum actually “see” what the person was up to…That is the true way to get rid of these fools. I will feel “cheated” if someone doesn’t respond under my comment with the word “fag” - which means “a cigarette end” over here in the UK.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Meh
August 5th, 2009 at 9:50 am
wrong, the internet always sucked
August 5th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Good column
August 5th, 2009 at 9:46 am
brockways right! we need a new troll word, something that can hit every sensibility,
im going with shittyjewcockfag
August 5th, 2009 at 9:44 am
why is nothing you write funny??
August 5th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I thought youtube was bad comments wise, but then I took my sad, sad trip into forum land about 3 months ago, and my god are people ridiculous there.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:38 am
While I have no way of knowing how accurate it is, your theory is simple and concise and makes plenty of sense to me.
I’ve made it a point for myself to visit some of the nastiest and most troll-infested places on the internet (none of which I will list here, unless you REALLY want to know.) and keep visiting until I can do so without inhuman rage taking over my mind. Its kind of an innoculation against trolling. Best way to deal with them is to ignore them.
I’m still amazed at their sheer quantity though.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:33 am
meh fuckwad ass-monkey asswipe shit fuck nipple tits faggot mehthink u ned 2 fuck a donkey
August 5th, 2009 at 9:30 am
You’re grammar is atrocious. Maybe you should learn to spell so I could understand you’re article.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:28 am
rooster fucker.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I got tired of spammers and trolls and moderators and administrators who act like trolls themselves, so I stopped going to forums. But I suppose they exist for a reason, though reasons can be tainted.
I personally would try writing ‘mehdouche’.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Robert Brockway: Troll Slayer!
August 5th, 2009 at 9:09 am
Your retarded. I fucked you’re mom.
August 5th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Thanks for “mehfag.” DOUCHE!
August 5th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I’ll never understand trolls.
I mean, wow, it’s *actually* possible to make people angry at you… with words? Stop the presses! This keen insight into human behavior must be studied… and exploited!
August 5th, 2009 at 8:56 am
FIRST!!!
August 5th, 2009 at 8:56 am
The above is the major reason I have never participated in forums, BBS, etc. since Al Gore invented the internet. I leave my socializing for the real world.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:54 am
meh, fag
August 5th, 2009 at 8:52 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Please don’t feed the trolls.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:44 am
Ah, thank-you for this article. I finally understand trolls a teeny tiny bit.
I would love it if there was a flagging system on cracked to take down the stupidest and nastiest of comments, but then collegehumor.com has that in place and have you READ their comments? Gawddamn!
And fuhggeddabout craigslist.org. Do not read the rants and raves section if you were hoping to hold out some faith in humanity.
Anyways, keep up the good work, Brockway.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Dickbag.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Nice essay. For a FAGGOT.
Maybe you could write a better essay if you weren’t sucking our OWN DICK.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Im curious if you can get some of those ITGs to evolve for the betterment of mankind. Kind of like using viruses to make vaccines, you can evolve ITGs to go hunt down some of the more annoying trolls. Gotta take a scientific route if your going to fix the problem. Maybe require an home adress which each post, that way the local ITG can hunt down the annoying bastards and fight them. Although I dunno if they would be effective against people who think they are funny by adding watered down wit in their comments. Oh yea, Fag balls.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:23 am
There is a certain type of troll enabler on the internet, “the shit-stirer”. You know that guy who posts something stupid like why don’t christians believe in god, or why is ( fill in any minority ) considered stupid or lazy, and then sits back and watches all the trolls flame at each other over what they started.
Well when you post something that begs for stupid coments and dose not do much else, aren’t you just enabling trolls and idiots like a shit-stirer
August 5th, 2009 at 8:20 am
“i am the bestest(sic) you are the worstest(sic)” only thing americans can think if you are offended by this you are american
August 5th, 2009 at 8:19 am
UGH! http://neilsnotes.com/index.php?page=15&catid=32&sku=E-CD00298
August 5th, 2009 at 8:19 am
SHITTING DICK NIPPLES.
GAAAAAY
That will be all.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:09 am
I just posted this to Digg.
I cant believe no1 else did, you shameful, lazy people!
August 5th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Marry me, The DM!!
You had me at “junkpunch.”
August 5th, 2009 at 8:07 am
“Now that he wasn’t penciling “fisticuffs w/ queer” into his scheduler”
Had me laughing my head off in my studio! Good job my Boss didn’t walk in at that moment.
Another wonderful piece of genius.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:06 am
hey, for Brockway, this was kind of fun.
i don’t even know why i don’t like him. maybe i was scared of new things when he came on cracked.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:58 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I’m with Cherlindrea on the Gold Star w/caption.
Scaglia, I challenge you to fisticuffs. CCR only rocks a lot.
I was wondering when Vorhees would show up. Then I spotted Doctorchaos’ comment. Now all we need is RedJimmy to weigh in to acheive the Cracked Troll Trifecta.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:53 am
*Yawn* Couldn’t get past the “punch your whole block” before I bailed on this egg. When’s the next Seanbaby article coming out?
August 5th, 2009 at 7:52 am
Yes I really do dislike trolls in a very civil manner.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:49 am
mehfag? Brilliant!
August 5th, 2009 at 7:49 am
l0lz, you fagtards. This article is so fucking FTW!!1!1!!!!!1!#@$%1ONE! You all fail at life, fucking ass-dolphins.
*Ahem* That was weird… Note to self: Never do that again. Erm, yes. This article was amusing, and I approve of it. Thank you for listening.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:39 am
gay
August 5th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Congratulations go to DB and Lord Shplane for being the first to lose the game! Trolls have successfully been trolled.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Trolls are fun.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:29 am
that article sucked dick…give me your address and ill come to your city and beat the fuck outta you and punch you ENTIRE BLOCK you mehfag!
lol that was interesting…but seriously good article
August 5th, 2009 at 7:22 am
There is an easy way to avoid trolls: you just need to avoid the retarded internet hangouts where they congregate, like this one for example. Problem solved!
August 5th, 2009 at 7:19 am
[...] The Evolution of the Troll: From Internet Tough Guy to ‘Meh’ [...]
August 5th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Trolls do it for the lulz
August 5th, 2009 at 7:19 am
GODDAMMIT!
That’s not macaroni.
It’s cavatappi.
What is this? Amateur hour?
August 5th, 2009 at 7:04 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I can’t tell the difference between the actual trolls in these comments and the people making fun of them.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:03 am
lolwut?
August 5th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 7:00 am
YOUR RETARDED
August 5th, 2009 at 6:59 am
You entirely misunderstand why trolls do what they do. It has nothing to do with “destroying” anything, or being “equal to” anyone.
They just think it’s funny when you get pissed off. Like this. They’re laughing their asses off at how butthurt you are.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:56 am
I thought that was the logo for fisting.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:54 am
BBS’s also hosted real-world “get togethers”, meaning at one point you were actually encouraged to get up from your computer and go hang out at a coffee shop with the people you’d been screaming “OMG FAGITTS!” at all week. It wasn’t only in small towns either, this was common practice in places like Seattle. So even if you didn’t attend, you *knew* that there would be ten to twenty people hanging out every weekend talking about what an asshat you are.
Basically, being a dick in the BBS era had stigma attached because you were dealing with a small number of folks who actually knew each other (a forum a tenth the size of PWoT would have melted the servers into a Dali painting). These days, being a dick is the quickest, easiest way to get noticed, and any attention is good attention, right? So basically, it’s the virtual equivalent of jumping up and down on your parents’ couch screaming “Look at me!”
And we still haven’t learned to ignore them.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Brockway, enough of the fucking rants. That was meh with a capital M. Theres a difference between being a troll and a justified critic.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:52 am
I think mehfags is the word to describe people who say meh, like britfags is the word to describe the brits. Logically, that makes sense. Logically.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Tell you what dickwad. Using this open format comments option is the article equivalent of a naked whore walking down the street at 3 am with a tatoo just above her snatch saying “enter here”.
Any format that doesn’t require a login is begging for massive amounts of spam, trolling and highly refined retardation of the written form.
Just compare ANY article that uses THIS foramt, to one where we have our login names displayed and you’ll see a world of difference. You’ll also see far less copycat commentors proudly informing the rest of the world how they fucked your mother, or something similar.
Grats for defining “irony” in a new and exciting way. You realise by doing this you’re an “enabler”.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:42 am
http://forum.cheatengine.org/files/lol_i_troll_u_885.png
This always makes me smile
August 5th, 2009 at 6:42 am
nice article you third term abortion
August 5th, 2009 at 6:39 am
If you casholes don’t cut the shit, I swear to Christ I’m going find out where you live and junkpunch each and every last one of you mehfags.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Guilty as charged.
As always, this is some great shit, Brockway. Keep the roast coming.
But in defense of the smarter trolls, I’d just like to say that it’s really fun pulling off some Sasha Baron Cohen antics from an office computer for a few minutes a day.
It brings out the bitch in everybody.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:37 am
I’m going to post a funny comment too because it’s the shit that is talked about in the article and I think I’m clever….Fag
August 5th, 2009 at 6:35 am
I stopped reading youtube comments long ago when I realized that a good 30% of them said “your gay”. It isn’t very surprising actually. In the real world morons gravitate to television. On the internet, morons gravitate to the closest thing to television, which is why I make sure to avert my eyes from any comments if I absolutely must view a youtube video.
Self-righteous rant over.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:29 am
trolls can cause the venereal disease trollitis. if you have unprotected sex with a troll you can turn into a troll. donkeys are okay
August 5th, 2009 at 6:28 am
you’re a homo.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:27 am
d b Says:
August 5th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Why does people believe that people trolls because they want to feel superior? Fuck, do you know this place called YouTube? You can’t NOT feel superior to them, anything from ‘lol this band sux’ to ‘lol black people sux’ is guaranteed to begin a huge shitstorm of people taking it seriously. The fact is that everyone in the Internet is a little retarded on the inside (just like all men are a little gay on the inside), and believe me, exploiting this is really, REALLY funny. Not because you have a need to feel superior, or to destroy a ‘decent conversation’, but because anything could be considered as trolling. Saying ‘All Trolls are weak guys with issues that need to discharge their rage online because they can’t IRL’ is just as likely to troll someone and have someone rage, than to go on YouTube and say ‘niggers’.
You know what’s the worst part? Everyone falls for it. Even if you explicitly state that you’re trolling, people will flip out. A bunch of morons disagreeing on the comment section will probably think the other one is trying to fuck with them because they’re dicks; and in the end, Trolling ends up as a redundant thing. Wait until someone says something, then say the exact opposite of that and blatantly insult their sexuality; HELLS YEAH you just showed ‘em.
=============================================
Dude, it’s only funny to you because you feel YOU are the one in control, tugging at the strings of all the “lesser minded” people who fall for your snipes.
Meaning, you troll because getting people overly pissed makes you feel better than them — like some sort of I-net Vulcan that looks down at the overly emotional humans.
It’s a total control trip.
You’re basically proving this article right.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:25 am
shrek is a fag
August 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am
shrek has a point the word trolls is highly offensive to trolls. the only people who should say trolls are actual trolls. i know i used the word trolls while not being a troll, but my best friend is a troll, (he lives under a bridge and eats billy goats!) so its okay
August 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Too many good metaphors.
And, by the way, CCR rocks the most.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:20 am
being an actual troll i find the use of the word “troll” in this article degrading.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Good article. Pathetic trolls on the comment section. Just another day on Cracked.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:19 am
I’m pretty sure everyone on youtube’s trolling everyone else.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Oi! Teenagers contribute to society! They… hang out at places… and go to school… and experiment with less than scientific things…
Hurm. Well, that’s that, then. I have to invent a pill that will age a person exactly one year. Or get a job. Whichever.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:10 am
“i know MY favorites are the people that just write “you suck” or “you gay”. because they are the most lonely and IRL if you talked to them you could emotionally destroy them and cause them to need therapy because of how easy it is to tear apart pathetic losers.
trust me, its fun.”
That’s just a retarded thing to say. Theres many reasons why, but I don’t want to explain them to you.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:00 am
I see what you did there…
August 5th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 5:45 am
That, was the most epic MIND-FUCK ever. You sir, are awesome.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Why does people believe that people trolls because they want to feel superior? Fuck, do you know this place called YouTube? You can’t NOT feel superior to them, anything from ‘lol this band sux’ to ‘lol black people sux’ is guaranteed to begin a huge shitstorm of people taking it seriously. The fact is that everyone in the Internet is a little retarded on the inside (just like all men are a little gay on the inside), and believe me, exploiting this is really, REALLY funny. Not because you have a need to feel superior, or to destroy a ‘decent conversation’, but because anything could be considered as trolling. Saying ‘All Trolls are weak guys with issues that need to discharge their rage online because they can’t IRL’ is just as likely to troll someone and have someone rage, than to go on YouTube and say ‘niggers’.
You know what’s the worst part? Everyone falls for it. Even if you explicitly state that you’re trolling, people will flip out. A bunch of morons disagreeing on the comment section will probably think the other one is trying to fuck with them because they’re dicks; and in the end, Trolling ends up as a redundant thing. Wait until someone says something, then say the exact opposite of that and blatantly insult their sexuality; HELLS YEAH you just showed ‘em.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:39 am
Alas, poor Brockway. His genius is overshadowed by the commentors that can only copy his innovation. Well, I still think you’re awesome, Brockway. The “Who’s my special little asshole? It’s you!” absolutely killed me.
Well done, sir.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:37 am
i know MY favorites are the people that just write “you suck” or “you gay”. because they are the most lonely and IRL if you talked to them you could emotionally destroy them and cause them to need therapy because of how easy it is to tear apart pathetic losers.
trust me, its fun.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:32 am
[...] something wrong with the part of my brain that processes feelings of stability and contentment. You can find the article here, and be sure to check the comments section to really drive home my point about comments sections [...]
August 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am
meh…
August 5th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Hey, Stoneglad, ’sup?
August 5th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Well done, Comments Section, well done. The article was just a very funny setup for a punchline that could only come from you.
Lobster’s contribution was my fave.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:29 am
vv Mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 5:24 am
BBSes had one thing we lack today.
You could actually get rid of an asshole. Permenantly. Especially if you used a callback verifyer. Block their # and they won’t get in again. And even if they do. You have their phone number. To call up and scream at their mommy for raising such a little fucktard. (We did this. It was hilarious telling their mommy what an assbag little johnny was.)
And now you just ban their ip. they get a new one and start bothering you again.
A huge step backward there….
August 5th, 2009 at 5:22 am
“mehfag.”
i love you too, Brockway
August 5th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Is dat artcle a tret?!? R u tretnin me Brockgay?!?
Seriously though great article.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:08 am
meh. fag. mehfag. fagmeh. mag. feh. mehmeh. fagfag. magfeh. fehmag.
I like “fagmeh” the best, because it sounds like “fag me”, aka “indulge in anal intercourse with me, providing you are a man”, which is what i secretly want to say to everyone anyway.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:06 am
I always loved history at school. Good show, Mr. Brockway.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:02 am
They did. They fucking did. They wrote “mehfag” into their little comment boxes just like you said they would.
And it isn’t ironic, just in case that was the first line of defense you would try to pull.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:58 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 4:56 am
u guys aer all sooo stupit, buncha fags desreve a cock in the mouf.
I should probably say “nigga” too.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:55 am
u r all fag!! SLICE FTW!!
August 5th, 2009 at 4:53 am
meh
August 5th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Looking fwd to the comments for this article…
August 5th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Mehfag.
…am.. am I doing it right? I’m so nervous!
August 5th, 2009 at 4:44 am
just kidding. Nice stuff Brockway. Makes mouths happy.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:43 am
brockGAY? More like COCKgay am i rite lol wtfbbqsaucre chairman lmao
August 5th, 2009 at 4:42 am
fagmeh?
August 5th, 2009 at 4:41 am
u suk
August 5th, 2009 at 4:38 am
“or you could type “mehfag” into the text box below whe-oh you’re already doing that? Well, aren’t you clever.”
Annnd free-will is disproved. Well done, you predictable sponges.
August 5th, 2009 at 4:37 am
article sucks ass
August 5th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Awesome article that hits all the high points. I remember back from my BBS days when ITGs would offer to kick my ass at the monthly BBS Bowling Events. Amazing how most of them ended up being exactly what most Trolls are today - skinny little twerps.
Going to recommend this article to everyone I know, Robert. You hit the proverbial nail on the head with the flaccid dick of Trolls everywhere.
Keep up the good work!
August 5th, 2009 at 4:34 am
fagnmeh
August 5th, 2009 at 4:26 am
fag ur ghey
il kick ur ass n lik ur mum my cok LMAO u fkn prk wnk shitfag runin days ur a ttal fag
August 5th, 2009 at 4:24 am
tl;dr
August 5th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Nice article, I prefer the term “keyboard gansters” as opposed to the ITG…(resists urge to type mehfag)
Damnit!?
August 5th, 2009 at 4:18 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 4:17 am
LOL FAG
August 5th, 2009 at 4:17 am
More like BrockG- **** SOMEONE TOOK IT ALREADY
god damn mehfags
August 5th, 2009 at 4:14 am
mehfag
August 5th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Brockway? moar liek BrockGAY amirite lolololo111
August 5th, 2009 at 4:10 am
meh