Trolls just want to have fun.
Long before the word ?troll? *conjured up sinister online activities, such as cyberbullying, promoting propaganda and hacking, the word was used by members of tight-knit internet communities to describe good-natured jokesters, a Western University researcher says.
But that has changed in recent years, said Yimin Chen, a PhD candidate in library and information sciences who?s tracing the origin of trolling and documenting its different interpretations.
?It?s a word that?s been used in a variety of different ways and I?m trying to unpack the different meanings up it,? Chen said.
Growing up immersed in internet culture, particularly the world of gaming, he recalls when trolling was a word used in a non-insulting manner.
?Trolling is basically playing around with references, with images, with hyperlinks ? all of the things that the internet has *available to prank your friends, tease them, makes jokes,? Chen said.
?And it?s all sort of in good fun.?
Chen?s research was driven by inconsistencies between the *traditional use of trolling and how it?s now portrayed by the media and in popular culture.
The 34-year-old academic suspects the change in the use of trolling first came around 2015 when a rash of misogynistic attacks on female video-game journalists ? a scandal dubbed ?Gamergate? ? was picked up by mainstream media.
?That started to raise the profile of trolling,? he said.
Another major shift came after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Chen said, when American law-enforcement officials accused Russian agents of meddling by hacking Democratic emails and spreading fake news stories on social media.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an internet troll as a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
Chen said he hopes his work can show there are different types of trolling, some harmless and entertaining, others more sinister, such as hacking and distributing propaganda.
But he?s not holding out hope the word will ever shake its negative associations.
?I don?t know if trolling can be reclaimed the way I would have hoped it could have.?
Long before the word ?troll? *conjured up sinister online activities, such as cyberbullying, promoting propaganda and hacking, the word was used by members of tight-knit internet communities to describe good-natured jokesters, a Western University researcher says.
But that has changed in recent years, said Yimin Chen, a PhD candidate in library and information sciences who?s tracing the origin of trolling and documenting its different interpretations.
?It?s a word that?s been used in a variety of different ways and I?m trying to unpack the different meanings up it,? Chen said.
Growing up immersed in internet culture, particularly the world of gaming, he recalls when trolling was a word used in a non-insulting manner.
?Trolling is basically playing around with references, with images, with hyperlinks ? all of the things that the internet has *available to prank your friends, tease them, makes jokes,? Chen said.
?And it?s all sort of in good fun.?
Chen?s research was driven by inconsistencies between the *traditional use of trolling and how it?s now portrayed by the media and in popular culture.
The 34-year-old academic suspects the change in the use of trolling first came around 2015 when a rash of misogynistic attacks on female video-game journalists ? a scandal dubbed ?Gamergate? ? was picked up by mainstream media.
?That started to raise the profile of trolling,? he said.
Another major shift came after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Chen said, when American law-enforcement officials accused Russian agents of meddling by hacking Democratic emails and spreading fake news stories on social media.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an internet troll as a person who makes a deliberately offensive or provocative online post.
Chen said he hopes his work can show there are different types of trolling, some harmless and entertaining, others more sinister, such as hacking and distributing propaganda.
But he?s not holding out hope the word will ever shake its negative associations.
?I don?t know if trolling can be reclaimed the way I would have hoped it could have.?
