Computer culture division. The New York Times discovers web trolls.

§ Want to start trolling? here’s where to begin:

These abbreviations are fun ways to add personal flavor to your email and online discussion postings. What’s really amazing is the depth of Internet vocabulary that has been built up over the years. Take a look at this Internet Abbreviations Glossary, and see for yourself…

1 COMMENT

  2. That story was very long and depressing, more so because I know a number of people who are proud to be trolls.

  3. Wow. The New York Times is reporting on /b/ and even quoting threads. I mean.. Wow. What an odd place that I’ve never heard from before, let alone visited. Certainly haven’t been there today or troll their comic boards about Judd Winick or anything. Yeah…

    Though really, if you want to stare into the abyss that is the id of the internet, look no further. Just be aware that the abyss gazes back. They are legion. They do not forgive. They do not forget. Expect them. Meanwhile, I thought rules 1 & 2 were not to talk about that web site. Whoops. Crap. Am I next? Maybe I should have posted anonymously. :3 Actually, I confess to at first getting a chuckle out of the ‘an hero’ joke. There’s a gallows humor when a kid supposedly kills himself over something so stupid and the odd inhumane way this generation mourns over some impersonal MySpace page. Though to think that some morons actually bothered the poor dumb kids parents, that is disgusting.

    At the same time, they have cranked out some good things too. There’s the whole antiScientology sub group. I hear Warren Ellis even put that bit into one of his books. Moreso, they are a hive and womb of internet memes. If there’s an internet trend, it likely comes from there. There, its progenitor site Something Awful, YTMND, and a couple others are birthing grounds of the collective cyber-conscious. Stuff like the Rick Roll phenomenon from this past April Fool’s started there. Lol Cats seems to be from there too. So they’re not all bad.

    The rest of the article is fascinating too. It’s like a comic book or Gibson novel. There’s this Craigslist guy. Wow. Maybe it’s from rereading Watchmen, but does anyone else think he’s a kind of cyver-vigilante and online superhero. Well, using ther hero term loosely, if not anti-hero. Certainly a flawed and messed up one with a tragic past, like one from the 80s or 90s. That Weev sounds like he took a note from Ra’s Al Ghul. Heroes, super-villains, hackers, mad scientists, vigilantes. I can’t help but see parallels. Though the mask of anonymity these crusaders wear is virtual. Very eerie parallels if you as me.