Troll Eruptions

Last night, something strange happened at Progressive Eruptions. Suddenly, Shaw Kenawe had morphed into Shaw Kenawe, The Wicked Witch of the Blogosphere! Either someone hacked into Shaw’s profile, or Shaw is participating in a hoax. Whether trolling or masquerading as a troll, pranks – no matter how seemingly harmless - are neither amusing nor funny. How often have we read accounts of online harassment, character assassination, threats of violence, or stories of teenage suicides due to bullying in Cyberspace!

Adrenaline is an addictive drug that promotes socially communicable aggression, and trolls are notorious adrenaline junkies. Let’s be perfectly blunt: Partisan blogging does not promote dialogue and debate and rarely, if ever, dissuades anyone of their opinion. Partisan blogging is motivated by self-amusement – a kind of ultimate video game - as bloggers from the left and the right taunt and engage each other in pointless and interminable arguments. How do you score this game? Trolls measure their success by the number of comments under every post – inspired, no doubt, by mischief.  Personally, none of this appeals to me.