Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday August 21 2016, @12:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the oxford-comma-—-use-it! dept.

In a rather well-timed yet coincidental counterpoint to Why we're Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate, Milo Yiannopoulos over at Breitbart brings us this:

A warped currency today governs popular culture. Instead of creativity, talent and boldness, those who succeed are often those who can best demonstrate outrage, grievance and victimhood.

Even conservatives are buying into it. Witness, in the days since Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon was announced as Donald Trump's campaign manager, how establishment stooges have bought into the worst smear-tactics of the left. As with the left, nothing is evaluated on its quality, or whether it's factually accurate, thought-provoking or even amusing: only whether it can be deemed sexist, racist or homophobic.

Campuses are where the illness takes its most severe form. Students running for safe spaces at the slightest hint of a challenge to their coddled worldview. Faculties and administrations desperately trying to sabotage visits from conservative speakers (often me!) to avoid the inevitable complaints from tearful lefty students.

In this maelstrom of grievance, there is one group boldly swimming against the tide: trolls.

Trolling has become a byword for everything the left disagrees with, particularly if it's boisterous, mischievous and provocative. Even straightforward political disagreement, not intended to provoke, is sometimes described as "trolling" by leftists who can't tell the difference between someone who doesn't believe as they do and an "abuser" or "harasser."

Yeah, you knew I wouldn't let that kinda SJW nonsense slide without comment.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tfried on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:31PM

    by tfried (5534) on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:31PM (#391206)

    Ok, granted. Being called a troll could mean you're simply swimming hard against the mainstream. Or it could not. In my unwritten book, the core definition of being a "troll" is pissing off others, deliberately. An important connotation of that is that - in general - pissing off others is the main point of being a troll, whereas the method chosen is secondary.

    So what are possible reasons for being called a troll?
    1) People disagree with you, strongly, and are too immature to tolerate your opinion, possibly even for lack of counter-arguments. <-- You hope to be here.
    2) People disagree with you, but would have been ok with your statement if you had simply left out the ad hominem. <-- Doesn't make your ideas any worse, but you probably haven't convinced anybody, either.
    3) People agree with you, but reject your statement for too much offensive language. <-- Mostly theoretical category, listed for completeness. People just aren't that reasonable.
    4) People think your statement is so obviously designed to be offensive, that they do not even think you believe in any of what you said. <-- Proper use of the word "troll" according to my above defintion; of course this still does not rule out that the audience has guessed wrong, and you actually were trying to make a point.

    I won't guess on the proportions, make up your own statistics. My point is: It is not necessarily bad to be called a troll, but it's quite a leap of faith to take pride in being called a troll.

    As to "troll" being used mostly by the left: Probably true. That's simply because for case 1), above, the alt-right prefers the term "SJW".

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3