#alwaysonline

(Google Play, 2017)

Whenever I thought of trolls, I always conjured the image of the three billy goats Gruff and the troll that lived under the bridge, and wouldn’t let the goats cross. In recent years I’ve learned of a new troll and they are every bit, if not more, as horrible as the ones under the bridge.

As a parent of a teenage girl, her online citizenship is always a concern. Growing up in the age of technology and social media, she is always connected, whether it be Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr or whatever other social media platform she is using today (Boyd, 2012). Her phone is constantly dinging, a message here, and a like there, and she runs to pick it up every time. For now, everything is peaches and she has not run into anything too heavy online, but what happens when she does.

People her age are so open and accessible online, constantly uploading selfies, commenting here and there, and never really giving a thought to what they put out there. This openness can, and does lead to negativity and trolling, no one likes to be the butt of someone else’s joke (Bergstrom 2011). I think one of the hardest lessons to teach a young person is regarding images. Once you release an image into the world, it can never be retrieved, and you have no control over how it’s used, or what type of comments will be sent your way regarding the image.

The anonymity a computer gives, leaves people, colloquially known as keyboard warriors, believing they can say what they want with no repercussions, no one knows who they are, so there’s no backlash.  Remarks that they would never openly sprout in a face to face conversation/confrontation, come spewing onto the screen.

(know your meme, 2017)

With the internet still in its infancy, why people troll, on a psychological level is still being researched, but for one young Victorian man it makes him ‘happy’ (Adelaide Now, 2012). Ben, not his real name, takes enjoyment from other people’s anger, feeding off it. Ben spends up to 70 hours a week trolling websites for people to enrage. Now, 70 hours is a lot of time, so as you can imagine, Ben doesn’t have a job or time for friends or many friends at all - I can’t imagine why...but he says he doesn’t feel alone because he is part of a community. Ben is the quintessential key board warrior, tough, but only when protected by the anonymity of his computer; he didn’t use his real name for the article, and I’m guessing he didn’t use it online while trolling either. He also only trolls a page or a site once for fear of being arrested.

(Lloyd, 2017)

So next time you’re on line you have a choice, you can be like Ben and be the troll or you can be the bill goat, Gruff, which one would you rather be?

Adelaide Now, 2012, ‘'It just makes me happy when I can make someone angry' - A special investigation into the dark world of trolling’, viewed 15 January 2017, <http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/it-just-makes-me-happy-when-i-can-make-someone-angry-a-special-investigation-into-the-dark-world-of-trolling/news-story/43c8e92cc0d9619a4b93791cfe741998>

Bergstrom, K 2011, ‘“Don't Feed the Troll”: Shutting down the debate about community expectations on Reddit.com’, First Monday vol. 16, no. 8, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3498/302>

Boyd, D 2012, Participating in the Always On Lifestyle, in Mandiberg (ed) The Social Media Reader, NYU Press, pp. 71-76.

Lloyd, C, 2017 ‘Don’t be like Ben’ created using Imgflip 15 January 2017 <https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Be-Like-Bill>

The three Billy Goats Gruff, 2017, ‘The three Billy Goats Gruff’ viewed 15 January 2017, <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.agens.bukkenebruse>