國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University 碩士論文 Master’s Thesis 立
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全為了好玩? Youtube 酸民文化研究 They do it for the Lulz: Examining Trolls in the Context of YouTube y
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Student: Kevin Lim 林海威 Advisor: Professor Wang Su-­‐Mei 中華民國 104 年 6 月 June 2015 立
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Abstract Online trolls, who hide behind the veil of anonymity to obtain “lulz,” or entertainment from causing distress and pain to others, have been in existence since the advent of the internet. However, the rise of social media and the internet’s increased capabilities for a more global and interconnected community of interaction has concurrently brought to light the damaging effects of trolls, and the mysterious individuals lurking behind the mask. There are many classifications of online trolls, all defined specifically by the spaces they inhabit. Previous academics have investigated trolls in a few of these online 政 治 大
contexts including Facebook, Reddit and Wikipedia. 立
This thesis aims to extend the academic discussion of trolls to YouTube, specifically ‧ 國
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through examining the comments sections of famed YouTube user PewDiePie. First ‧
observed by Hardaker (2010), trollish characteristics such as ‘deception,’ ‘aggression,’ sit
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‘disruption,’ and ‘success’ are assessed in context of YouTube. This study will also attempt io
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to investigate the further social implications of online trolls such as their discriminatory n
tendencies as well as analyzing the persona behind the troll’s mask. Ch
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Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... i List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ iv Chapter 1 -­‐ Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 – Literature Review .................................................................................................. 4 2.1 What are Trolls? ............................................................................................................. 4 2.2 Hiding Behind the Veil: Online Anonymity as an Affordance for Trolls .......................... 8 2.3 The Culture of “Lulz”: It’s what Trolls Live For .............................................................. 14 治
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2.5 Trolls Come in all Shapes and Sizes .............................................................................. 30 立
2.5.1 Wikipedia Trolls .................................................................................................................. 31 2.4 Distinguishing Trolls from Other Online Deviants ........................................................ 21 ‧ 國
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2.5.2 Reddit Trolls ........................................................................................................................ 32 2.5.3 Trolls on Facebook: the Memorial Troll .............................................................................. 33 ‧
2.5.4 Trolls on Online Newspaper/Magazine websites ................................................................ 35 2.5.5 Twitter Trolls ....................................................................................................................... 36 Nat
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2.5.6 Anonymous Group .............................................................................................................. 38 al
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2.5.7 YouTube Trolls ..................................................................................................................... 40 n
2.6 Investigating the Deeper Implications of Trolls ............................................................ 44 Ch
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2.7 Extending Research to YouTube Platform .................................................................... 52 engchi
2.7.1 The Rise of YouTube ............................................................................................................ 53 2.7.2 PewDiePie – King of YouTube ............................................................................................. 56 Chapter 3 -­‐ Methodology ....................................................................................................... 66 3.1 Hardaker’s Model of Trolls ........................................................................................... 68 Chapter 4 -­‐ Characteristics of YouTube Trolls: The Case of PewDiePie .................................. 72 4.1 Aggression .................................................................................................................... 75 4.2 Deception ..................................................................................................................... 81 4.3 Disruption ..................................................................................................................... 85 4.4 Success .......................................................................................................................... 92 4.5 Resentment .................................................................................................................. 97 ii Chapter 5: The Social Implications of YouTube Trolls .......................................................... 104 5.1 Discriminatory Tendencies of Trolls ........................................................................... 106 5.1.1 Youtube Trolls and Sexism ................................................................................................ 106 5.1.2 YouTube Trolls and Homophobia ...................................................................................... 108 5.1.3 YouTube Trolls and Racism/Xenophobia ........................................................................... 108 5.2 Analyzing Specific YouTube Trolls ............................................................................... 111 5.2.1 Babywannabe ................................................................................................................... 111 5.2.2 Erim Aydinalp .................................................................................................................... 114 5.2.3 MLG POTATO .................................................................................................................... 117 5.2.4 jelena jankovic .................................................................................................................. 120 5.2.5 Jeenius Foo ........................................................................................................................ 121 政 治 大
Chapter 6: Limitations .......................................................................................................... 130 立
5.3 Social Implication of YouTube Trolls ........................................................................... 124 ‧ 國
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Chapter 7: Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 132 Works Cited .......................................................................................................................... 135 n
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List of Tables Table 1. Characteristics of YouTube Trolls .............................................................................. 74 Table 2. Patterns of Aggression in YouTube Trolls ................................................................. 76 Table 3. Discriminatory Practices of YouTube Trolls ............................................................ 105 立
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Chapter 1 -­‐ Introduction The troll is a modern day character, whose conception arose with the birth of the internet. Although most people find them unwelcome and repulsive, the devious troll still thrives in the online world. Many are reminded of the fairytale “The Three Billygoats Gruff” in which a fearsome troll lies in waiting to gobble up whomever or whatever dares to cross the bridge which rests above its lair. Some may find online trolls as dark and vile as their mythological counterparts but a distinct difference is that online trolls do not idly wait to “devour” their victims. In fact, the term “trolling” originally referred to a practice by 政 治 大
fishermen who slowly dragged a lure from a moving boat to attract fish to bite. In the online 立
world, trolls are also known for actively placing bait, in the form of inflammatory or ‧ 國
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controversial comments or posts, in hopes that unwitting users “bite” and are ultimately ‧
dragged into troll’s trap. sit
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Trolls vary according to specific contexts as different online communities define io
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trolls differently. However, trolls are generally known to cause trouble to individuals and n
online groups through various means such as provocation and disruption. Their motivations Ch
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may also vary from boredom to attention-­‐seeking, or as one recent study has proven, trolls are essentially the sadists of modern times driven by the pleasure of making others suffer (Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, 2014). The issue of trolling has become steadily more prevalent in modern day discourse as the influence of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and other online tools such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit increase with each passing day. For example, Twitter has become a popular tool for trolls who spew vitriolic and hateful comments towards anyone they please. The issue has been so widespread that in February 2015, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo personally apologized for the rampant amount of trolls who 1 plagued the Twitter platform, writing in an internal memo, “It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day” (Hern, 2015). In other affected segments of the internet, prominent websites such as Popular Science and CNN have vanquished a key aspect of community interaction by removing their commenting systems, women are constantly harassed and bullied online, sometimes to the point of suicide, and community-­‐based websites such as YouTube are teeming with vile and crude comments – all credited to the work of trolls. Online trolls outright ruin the online 政 治 大
experience for the majority of users who play by the rules and remain civil in their 立
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These cases bring up serious academic discussion about the identity of trolls, what makes them so effective and the motivations which lie behind their deviant behaviors. As ‧
more and more users become connected through the global community of the internet, it y
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also raises a slew of issues such as the social impact of trolls, how websites and individuals users can thwart trolls or protect themselves from their negative effects, and coming to al
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grips with reality that trolls will undoubtedly with us for as long as the internet exists, h e nremain gchi U
and that we just need to learn to deal with them. This dissertation will attempt to uncover some of these existing discussions about trolls, first by defining what trolls are and outlining their characteristics, even though they vary depending on context, and examining the internet’s allowance of anonymity which enables individuals to troll online when they might act otherwise in real life. Furthermore, we will examine troll culture in order to uncover some of the motivations behind trolling behaviors and attempt to distinguish trolls from other deviant online behavior, while highlighting several specific platform-­‐oriented trolls, such as those on YouTube, Reddit, 2 Wikipedia, Facebook, etc., and how they have adapted to thrive in their unique environments. After taking a closer look at the identities of trolls and the deeper implications of their practices, this thesis will attempt to extend existing academic literature about trolls to YouTube, a significant video-­‐sharing platform which inarguably maintains a significant level of influence in the modern world. In this study, I will observe trolls gleaned from one of YouTube’s most renowned users, PewDiePie, whose immense popularity and monumental fan base (35 million subscribers and counting) makes him and his videos inherently attractive targets for trolls. After analyzing the results, this study will attempt to 政 治 大
draw conclusions through the search of significant patterns and link findings to previous 立
research pertaining the broader notion of internet trolls. ‧
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Chapter 2 – Literature Review 2.1 What are Trolls? It is difficult to determine a fixed definition or set of characteristics that is encompassing of all trolls. This may be more so the case in recent times as the uses for the internet, as well as the variety of online platforms, has expanded and are continuing to grow each day. Across the internet, the term “troll” has been associated with a range of different activities and has become a blanket term to describe any and all online activities which one might find unwholesome (Hardaker, 2010). 政 治 大
At the infancy of the internet, discussion sites such as Usenet and MUD’s, online text 立
based roleplaying games, were popular among users. During this time, the practice of ‧ 國
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trolling was first documented by Donath (1999), who described trolling as a game of ‧
deception -­‐ a troll may enter an online group appearing to be a legitimate participant but y
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soon, find ways in which to become a nuisance to others and the online community as a v
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A famous real-­‐life case study by Herring et al. (2002) supports Donath’s claims. The Ch
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study chronicled the efforts of a troll named Kent who wreaked havoc in an online feminist forum for two months. During his reign of terror, Kent initially feigned sincerity to gain acceptance as a legitimate user of the feminist group. However, as time passed, Kent quickly revealed his true colors as he resorted to provoking members through obscene name-­‐calling or insults, or disrupting the community, all while community members had their hands tied as they struggled to properly deal with the destructive troll in their midst. An important concept in Donath’s (1999) description of trolls is that they aim to deceive their victims, specifically through pseudo-­‐naïve tactics. Others have echoed this claim by stating that trolling involves “posing as legitimate members and posting 4 inflammatory comments designed to provoke other members” (Kiesler, Kraut, Resnick, & Kittur, 2012). Deception may have been a key concept in trollish behavior for the specific instances in which these early observations were based, but it is not a necessary factor for all modern iterations of trolls. Since Donath’s initial analysis of trolls 25 years ago, trolls and trollish behaviors have evolved and become much broader. Scholars in more recent times do not have a completely cohesive view behind the definition of a troll and many have even acknowledged that the very concept of trolls is subjective (Haque, 2014). Hopkinson (2013) admitted that trolling is a “conceptually fuzzy 政 治 大
term” as it means different things to different people and trolls vary from site to site (Binns, 立
2012). This may be because different communities have different standards and notions of ‧ 國
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what is normative and what is not (Kiesler et al., 2012). Manjoo (2014) also conceded that the term “troll” is vague as they “lurk in darkness; their aims are unclear, their intentions ‧
unknown, their affiliations mysterious.” As such, trolling has become a “catch-­‐all term” y
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2010; Hopkinson, 2013). sit
often indiscriminately applied to a range of negatively characterized behaviors (Hardaker, al
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Urban Dictionary, a collaborative U offers the #1 user voted h eonline h di ictionary, n gsclang definition of trolls as “one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument” (“Urban Dictionary: troll,” 2002). Wikipedia’s definition states that: “A troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-­‐topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) 5 with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-­‐topic discussion.” (“Troll (Internet),” 2015) Binns (2012) argued that trolls generally “make trouble” for others, and Kirman et. al (2012) stated that trolls “take pleasure in upsetting others.” Common themes about what kinds of behavior constitute trolling include provoking others online (Hopkinson, 2013; Kiesler et al., 2012; Kirman et al., 2012), disrupting online communities (Hardaker, 2010; Herring et al., 2002; Hopkinson, 2013; Kiesler et al., 2012), or that it contains an element of deception (Buckels et al., 2014; Donath & others, 1999; Hardaker, 2010). Others have stated 政 治 大
that it involves destroying and harming online others and communities (Buckels et al., 2014; 立
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Shachaf & Hara, 2010) while at least one scholar, Bergstrom (2011), posited that trolls possess an ascertainable degree of malice since they intentionally seek to hurt others. ‧
Weckerle (2013), author of the book “Civility in the digital age: how companies and people Nat
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view of the troll: y
can triumph over haters, trolls, bullies, and other jerks” provides a more comprehensive Ch
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They delight in insulting, shocking, upsetting, and provoking others. They do this in a variety of ways. They write attacking and inflammatory content. They bring irrelevant and extraneous information to online exchanges to throw discussions off course. They post offensive and shocking images, often doctored to serve their purposes. No topic is off limits for them, and the more controversial, the better because outrageous actions are more likely to elicit strong responses from those targeted. (p. 87) 6 On the whole, the concept of trolling has been quite varied and while there have been a few overlapping themes, scholars agree that the term is, at best, purely subjective. For the purpose of this study, trolls will be defined as individuals who maliciously seek to trouble or disrupt other online users and communities. This definition implies two major points: 1) trolls vary according to the specific platforms in which they exist and 2) specifics regarding “how” a troll troubles and disrupts are defined and generally accepted by the overall users and communities of these platforms. The YouTube online video platform, which is the main subject of investigation in this 政 治 大
dissertation, contains a comments section beneath each video (although some users may 立
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YouTube’s community discussion ecosystem is also a fertile breeding ground for trolls. YouTube trolls often search for a dedicated community of fans and intentionally post Nat
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This proposed definition, however, does not include motives as to why trolls act the way they do and as we will observe later, there are many different types of trolls according al
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to the online context in which they emerge. delving more into motivations or specific h e nBefore gchi U
types of trolls, it is important to understand exactly what about the internet acts as a catalyst for trolling and other anti-­‐social behaviors. 7 2.2 Hiding Behind the Veil: Online Anonymity as an Affordance for Trolls The internet is a haven for many users to openly share their beliefs and opinions without the fear of backlash, ridicule and judgment of others because ultimately, no one truly knows who you are. This anonymity is what many have come to both love and hate about the internet. It’s true that online anonymity has many positive aspects such as its importance for democratic processes, namely freedom of speech in sharing unfavorable ideas and opinions, and also for empowering those who might normally be discriminated against in real life (Christopherson, 2007; Kennedy, 2006). 政 治 大
However, anonymity can also bring out the worst in mankind; its freeing properties 立
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effect anonymity could have on one’s morality; In his mythical tale “Ring of Gyges,” the ‧
main character, upon finding a golden ring that grants him invisibility, proceeds to use its powers to seduce the queen, slay the king and take up the throne for himself. y
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Anonymity, for many online users, is an affordance that allows them to freely spew hatred and bring down others without fear of punishment. Santana (2014) reviewed al
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hundreds of comments on newspaper h
site i Uimmigration and found that 53 eanrticles g cahbout percent of the anonymous comments were uncivil in contrast to 29 percent of the non-­‐
anonymous comments which were uncivil. Also, non-­‐anonymous commenters were three times more likely to leave civil comments than those who were anonymous. To put the power of anonymity into perspective, consider the plight of women rights activist Anita Sarkeesian, who for the past few years, has been a victim of hordes of nameless and faceless trolls (Kolhatkar, 2014). Trolls have attempted to ruin Sarkeesian’s life by sending her death threats, spreading false rumors and revealing her personal information online, with little chance of being held accountable for their actions. In the 8 article, law professor at the University of Maryland and author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, Danielle Citron, explained why this kind of outlandish abuse is possible in the 21st century, The Internet brings out the best and the worst in us. Anonymity lets us be our true selves, so the domestic violence victim or the LGBT person can communicate in a way they couldn’t before. But the trolls and the stalkers also act with impunity, because they can. Anonymity is the gasoline on the fire of hate that flares up on forums, chat rooms, and Xbox Live on a daily basis. (Kolhatkar, 2014) 立
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online world is different from real life because of many reasons, and thus many people ‧
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CMC can offer a very high degree of anonymity, and a great deal more engchi
control over a self-­‐representation than is available in FtF (Face to Face communication), but this anonymity can also foster a sense of impunity, loss self-­‐awareness, and a likelihood of acting upon normally inhibited impulses. (pp. 223-­‐224) There have been several theories about the effects of anonymity on online users. Suler (2004) first noted that anonymity contributes to the online disinhibition effect. That is, individuals behave quite differently online than they would in normal everyday life. Suler 9 posited other factors which contribute to the disinhibiting effects of the internet such as invisibility and asynchronicity, but most studies credit the most prevalent affordance for trolling and other anti-­‐social behaviors to the privilege of anonymity (Binns, 2012; Christopherson, 2007; Lapidot-­‐Lefler & Barak, 2012; Moore, Nakano, Enomoto, & Suda, 2012; Moor, Heuvelman, & Verleur, 2010; Turner, 2010). In contrast, the theory of deindividuation, which offers different explanation for the effects of anonymity, describes a state in which individuals in a group will cause a decrease in self-­‐observation, self-­‐evaluation and concern for social comparison and concern. In other words, the loss of self-­‐awareness 政 治 大
when online might contribute to an individual’s likelihood to troll because they are not fully 立
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but do so without fear of being punished. Christopherson (2007) called this feature autonomy which “involves the chance to experiment with new behaviors without fear of al
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social consequences” (p. 3401). In turn, lead to sense of extreme freedom haeutonomy i U
n g c chould for the individual who might do things normally disapproved of by others without the fear of consequences. Internet anonymity also has an “equalizing effect,” as Santana (2014) noted. Regardless of social status, sex, race, age, religion or status signifiers in the real world, everyone essentially remains at the same level online. “Because we cannot see each other, we cannot judge each other; consequently, virtual worlds are equalizing,” writes Kennedy (2006, p. 864). 10 Some have made a differentiation between different types or degrees of online anonymity. Hayne and Rice (1997) described two broad categories of anonymity – ‘technical anonymity’ and ‘social anonymity.’ ‘Technical anonymity’ is the removal of all meaningful identifying information about others, such as their name or picture, in the exchange of material. ‘Social anonymity’ refers to the perception of anonymity so while a user might not be truly anonymous, they still may perceive themselves to be so. Kennedy (2006) said, “There is a distinction between feeling and being anonymous” (p. 866). Admittedly, there are still others who say a lot of vicious and hateful things under 政 治 大
their real names, as with the case of Twitter or Facebook users. Such individuals may be 立
under the impression that they were anonymous as Joseph Reagle, Professor of ‧
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Communication Studies at Northeastern University suggests: People say horrible things on Twitter all the time under their own names. Nat
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There was a case in which the feminist website Jezebel—after President n
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Obama was elected—went and collected a series of Tweets from teenagers i
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saying horrible, racist things under their own names. And there’s the Ch
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Steubenville rape case—a lot of those guys were Tweeting horrible things under their real names. Even if they didn’t have anonymity, maybe they thought that they did (Lynch, 2014). Therefore, even though some online trolls may not be truly anonymous, the mere belief that they are anonymous is sufficient to spur them to do and say things they otherwise would not in Face-­‐to-­‐Face (FtF) communication. Many online trolls utilize various online tools to protect their anonymity online, such as virtual private networks (VPN) or masking IP addresses, while most trolls on social media sites simply do not register with 11 their real names or refrain from setting a profile pic. However, even the best measures may not completely ensure one’s anonymity online. There are also different degrees of anonymity. Lapidot-­‐Lefter and Barak (2012) made a distinction between ‘unidentifiability,’ the condition of being unknown to online others in terms of name, gender, age, weight, etc. and also ‘invisibility,’ which is not being able to see someone’s physical self online. Therefore, one can still video-­‐chat with a stranger online who is “visible” while still unable to identify him/her. Regarding invisibility, Moor et. al. (2010) found that the lack of eye contact in 政 治 大
Computer-­‐Mediated-­‐Communication (CMC) was a significant factor in flaming behaviors, 立
a.k.a. the use of hostile expression toward others in online communication. Moor also ‧ 國
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concluded that loss of self-­‐awareness because of online anonymity was a plausible cause of flaming on YouTube. Finally, anonymity was a proven factor in aggressive online posts ‧
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(Moore et al., 2012). Individuals who attacked other online users were more likely to be It is undisputed that anonymity plays a fundamental role for those individuals who al
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act as jerks online when they would be hless inclined to i do e n g c h Uso in real life. In fact, many websites have resorted to removing aspects of anonymity, such as requiring users register with a real name, in order to combat trolling. More information about the methods in which to deter trolls or at least minimize their harmful effects are presented in later sections. Anonymity itself can only be seen as an affordance to trolling, just as how owning a gun allows a person to murder. A gun owner has the free will to murder in the same way individuals concealed behind a wall of anonymity may choose to troll, but in the end, it still boils down to choice. Similarly, Lange (2007) has postulated that “it is not anonymity (or anonymity alone) but widespread forms of prejudice that lead to hateful messages” (p. 9). 12 Unanswered is the question “Why do some individuals troll and what are their motivations?” It is difficult to provide a conclusive answer to this question as the underlying motivations for trolling are still among dispute, and trolls on different platforms may be driven by different reasons. This question may be better answered by taking a closer look at troll culture, much of which is centered around the acquisition of “lulz” or entertainment obtained at the expense of online others. 立
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2.3 The Culture of “Lulz”: It’s what Trolls Live For The internet is a wonderful tool but it can also bring out mankind’s darkest traits, the “dark id” as is represented by some of the nastiest, negative, and juvenile content one could ever imagine viewing online. As explained earlier, anonymity acts as the principal mechanism which frees people to act differently online than they would in the real world. Because online identities are unknown and individuals can’t be held accountable for their actions, many people, often characterized as cowards with little self-­‐confidence, are more inclined to troll. But why? What fuels trolls to engage in such vile and despicable behaviors? 政 治 大
Some have attributed trolling motivations to boredom (Jun, 2014; Shachaf & Hara, 立
2010; West, 2015). They claim that individuals troll because they have nothing better to do ‧ 國
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with their time, but this doesn’t speak much about why individuals choose to troll instead of ‧
seeking less harmful activities when bored. Others have claimed that trolls are attention-­‐seekers (Binns, 2012; Breeze, 2012; Gil, y
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2014; Hardaker, 2010; Herring et al., 2002; Jun, 2014; MacKinnon & Zuckerman, 2012; Shachaf & Hara, 2010; Sierra, 2014). Many web users are aware of the common maxim al
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“Don’t Feed the Troll” (DFTT) in order th
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n g c h he attention they seek. However, the claim that trolls are driven by their need for attention is somewhat a paradox considering that most commit their actions under the guise of anonymity. This also fails to address why trolls, in their search for attention, need to resort to anti-­‐social behaviors such as provoking and disrupting. Even under the assumption that trolls are bored and/or need attention, there is psychological element clearly missing in these suppositions that doesn’t explain why users troll instead of committing themselves to more wholesome activities. There indeed lies a deeper root cause behind the troll’s damaging behaviors. 14 Unfortunately, very few empirical studies regarding actual trolls exist and there are even sparser scientific theories regarding the motivations of trolls. A recent study proved that online trolls are the equivalent of everyday “sadists” (Buckels et al., 2014). The study determined that trolling activities were linked to the Dark Tetrad of personality -­‐ which includes narcissim, machiavellanism, and psychopathy -­‐ but there was an especially strong correlation between trolling and sadism. The study was able to determine that sadists troll simply because they enjoy it. “Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of other,” Buckels et al. (2014) writes, “Sadists just want to have fun…and the internet is their 政 治 大
playground!” (p.5). Furthermore, it was concluded that individuals who commented most 立
frequently online were also most likely to partake in or enjoy trolling, thus adding to ‧ 國
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evidence of the link between the excessive use of technology and anti-­‐social traits. The sadistic nature of trolls, as proven in Buckels et. al.’s (2014) study, is ‧
synonymous to what is known in troll culture as the “lulz.” In internet speak, “lulz” is the y
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corruption of the word LOL (laughing at loud) and refers to the amusement of others’ distress. This laughter is not merely a “faint giggle,” but more suitably described as an al
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“aggressive form of laughter” (Phillips, h
2012). It is laughter e n g c h i Uthat comes from pushing other’s buttons while watching their heated reactions, and it stems from “the joy of disrupting one’s emotional equilibrium” (Schwartz, 2008). “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh” said an ex-­‐troll while another shared, “[Y]ou exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz” (Schwartz, 2008). Wired Magazine’s Quinn Norton (2011) writes 15 The lulz is laughing instead of screaming. It’s a laughter of embarrassment and separation. It’s schadenfreude. It’s not the anesthetic humor that makes days go by easier, it’s humor that heightens contradictions. The lulz is laughter with pain in it. It forces you to consider injustice and hypocrisy, whichever side of it you are on in that moment. The culture of “lulz,” also known as troll culture, also includes a social aspect in that trolls share their laughter with others who are “in on the joke.” Those aware of the troll’s intentions are invited to share the glee and laugh along with the troll at their victim(s). 政 治 大
Some trolls may cooperate together and collectively acquire lulz from their victims, who are 立
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frequently unaware that they are the butt of a joke. Bartlett (2013) described this as “sitting back and watching the show with a bunch of co-­‐conspirators.” ‧
In an interview, troll scholar Stefan Krappitz shared an anecdote to illustrate how a Nat
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troll may achieve the “lulz”: v
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However, if more people do know about the joke, the overall lulz created by it is increased. Often, it is enough to reveal the joke afterwards. Think of David Thorne, who created a fake profile of a young girl on Facebook. This girl “forgot” to set her birthday party to private and ten thousands of users joined the Facebook page for the party all the while Mr. Thorne was selling t-­‐shirts to the “best party ever”. Politicians and journalists all of a sudden started to discuss this Facebook party. After all the buzz settled down, David Thorne revealed the true story. If he hadn’t, this would have remained just some poor 16 girl’s crashed birthday party, but by revealing the whole story, many lulz have been had afterwards with all the buzz that was created.” (Samihaian, 2012) Apart from enjoying lulz with others, some trolls view lulz as a sort of game or competition in which they try to best one another or “out-­‐lulz” their troll peers, so to say. Schwartz (2008) said that “’Lulz is how trolls keep score” and, indeed, one troll admitted to keeping score of lulz (Turner, 2010). Perhaps this competitive aspect is why trolls are, at times, willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain the lulz, as illustrated in one troll’s guidelines for acquiring lulz: “Rules 政 治 大
would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely 立
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distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had” (Schwartz, 2008). An extreme example of trolling are Facebook ‧
memorial trolls, also known as RIP trolls, who visit the Facebook pages of the recently Nat
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deceased and post shocking or inhumane pictures and/or comments. Such posts include n
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away in a car accident. Such trolls enjoy stirring public emotion and they gain strength from the heated reactions of those they manage to instigate. Though many times unconsciously, trolls revolve around this culture of gaining pleasure from making others suffer. It is impossible to separate this “psychological” sadistic motivation from the culture of lulz that trolls operate under. Trolls live for lulz, it is what makes them do what they do, it is their reason for existence. That is why many experienced online users know not to “feed the trolls.” Trolls are skilled at posting comments intended to provoke others and hope others will take the bait and respond -­‐ the more heated and 17 incensed the response, the better. Therefore, the best thing a person can do is to starve the troll of attention, in which case they will quickly move on supposedly to another target. Many have reasoned that one simply cannot win an argument against a troll because they are immune to criticism, are deaf to logic and have sociopathic tendencies -­‐ one author even described them as “psychopath-­‐lite” (Kim, 2014). Trolls gain energy and grow in power the more you insult them or attempt to retaliate. At least one writer, Kathy Sierra (2014), warned that even ignoring trolls is not always a surefire tactic to make them go away. In fact, it may actually have the opposite effect of strengthening the troll: 立
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Yes, sure, “don’t feed the trolls” has been the standard advice, a bullshit talking point propagated by trolls to blame their targets. “You brought this on. ‧
You don’t want this? Don’t engage.” Except that’s not actually true. It’s the Nat
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harder, scream louder, and in the most desperate scenarios, become Ch
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destructive. Anything to get the attention they crave. Simply moving on is not an option for the haters once you’ve been labeled a Koolaid server and/or a rich source of lulz. Ignore them, and the trolls cry harder, scream louder, and become destructive. In most instances, ignoring a troll will probably lead them to give up and look elsewhere in the pursuit of lulz, but this again, is all dependent on context and may not work in all scenarios. 18 In addition to sadistic trolls who live for acquiring lulz, some others have investigated another possible breed of “self-­‐righteous trolls” who believe they are serving a greater purpose. In a rare interview with infamous troll Jason Fortuny, responsible for numerous high-­‐profile troll acts like the “Craigslist Experiment,” Fortuny explained that he was simply a “normal person who does insane things on the internet” (Schwartz, 2008). For reference, the Craigslist Experiment involved Fortuny posting hoax ads on Craigslist, posing as a women in search of “str8 brutal dom muscular men” and then sharing the personal information of the respondents on his blog. Fortuny also attempted to legitimize the work 政 治 大
of trolls by claiming that only with trolls demonstrating and making use of exploits, will they 立
get fixed. He has also downplayed some of his actions by blaming the victims for caring so ‧ 國
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much and said that people would stop getting hurt if they just learned to ignore the trolls. This complacent attitude is similar to that of Facebook RIP trolls, mentioned earlier, ‧
who defend their work as attacking “grief tourists” (Phillips, 2011). Grief tourists are y
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individuals who visit the memorial pages of the deceased, of whom they have absolutely no ties with, and may sometimes leave notes of condolence. RIP Trolls were also quick to divert al
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attention of their heinous acts through eddling anti-­‐hegemonic sentiments such as hpe
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“Chelsea King fans: why aren’t you helping to find Jalsea Reynolds?” Jalsea Reynolds was a black high school student who went missing the same week as Chelsea King, but received significantly less media attention. Phillips (2011) has even described anecdotal examples of trolls frequently referring to themselves in the third person as it “may explain the ease with which trolls detach from the havoc they wreak – in their minds, it’s not exactly them doing the damage.” This phenomenon appears to detail a process in which trolls are merely characters created by 19 individuals, characters that remain separate from their creators. Phillips (2011), described one such troll, Paulie Socash, and the clash of creator/troll dynamic: Even Paulie Socash, one of the most – let’s say committed – trolls I’ve ever encountered, and whose standard response to criticism of trolling is an emphatic HEY GUYS THE POWER BUTTON IS RIGHT THERE, has at times struggled with particularity. He is, after all, a normal guy who also happens to be a troll, and the normal side of the equation (which, for the record, is really quite pleasant) doesn’t always align with his trolling persona. 立
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Such an example begs the question: “Are trolls purely sadists whose main form of pleasure ‧ 國
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derives from “lulz,” or are trolls merely constructed identities rationalized as separate from ‧
their creators?” Do individuals troll because they enjoy doing harm or do they actually sit
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believe they are taking part in harmless fun for the sake of entertainment? Are YouTube io
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trolls sadists in search of causing distress to others or are they actually serious in their v
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helpful to study their attitudes to see just which side of the equation their motivations exist. It will also be interesting to determine how large a role the acquisition of lulz plays for trolls on YouTube. 20 2.4 Distinguishing Trolls from Other Online Deviants As previously mentioned, determining a standard definition for trolls by online users and academics alike have been problematic. Perhaps it is because trolls often move between the lines and operate under the guise of deception and manipulation. It is no wonder why many people often confuse trolls with other online deviants. For example, Breeze (2012) said that often the word “troll” has been used interchangeably for “cyberbully” and “hacker.” While there are discrete differences between these different types of online offenders, often the boundaries between their behaviors are blurred or even overlap at 政 治 大
times. Nonetheless, in an attempt to further the understanding of trolls, it is important to 立
distinguish them from other unpleasant characters found lurking in the shadows of the ‧ 國
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internet. ‧
Trolling has commonly been associated with a myriad of different actions such as “flaming” and “hating.” While trolling may frequently consist of these actions, they are not y
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necessarily limited to these parameters. Flaming is “a hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users, often involving the use of profanity” (“Flaming (Internet),” 2015). al
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U sometimes at the very onset Trolls will often resort to flaming when hattacking e n g ctheir h ivictims, of a conversation, or progressively as the discussion escalates from fairly tame banter to a violent shouting match. Flaming often involves a flood of vulgar language and strings of capitalized text. An example of this is when Kent, the aforementioned feminist board troll, wrote to one board member, “Gee, Simone, I dunno, maybe its because you’re a bimbo who can’t figure out the difference between an anecdote and a statistic? If you want more money then get off your lazy ass and make some” (Herring et al., 2002, pp. 375–376). Not surprisingly, the sarcastic insult triggered a heated response by community members, just as the troll had wanted. 21 In 2004, author Anne Rice also found herself in a flame war with reviewers on Amazon who expressed their dissatisfaction with her one of her books. After receiving several negative reviews such as "I have read almost every one of Anne Rice's novels, and I have to say this is the worst one” and “Anne, you really should have an editor, or at least someone that would read your book before you send it off to print,” Anne was incensed and retaliated by posting a 1,200 word defense of her book. "Your stupid, arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander,'' Rice wrote. "You have used the site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies'' (Lyall, 2004). 政 治 大
Other than “flaming,” trolling has also been closely associated with “hating.” In one 立
of Taylor Swift’s hit songs, “Shake it off,” the lyrics addresses many of her critics: ‧ 國
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“Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play ‧
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate y
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Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake n
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In the song’s lyrics, Swift mentions some of her most widespread criticisms such as having “no brain” and being a chain-­‐dater but instead of taking all of the negativity and criticism to heart, she chooses to ignore them and “shake it off.” Of the haters Taylor Swift references in her song, a large portion could very well have stemmed from her interaction online through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Haters, obviously, express hate through public forums as they seek to attract attention from their provocative and hateful comments but are not necessarily interested in attracting responses (“Hater (Internet),” 2015). This is markedly different from 22 trolls, who more often than not, are seeking some semblance of interaction with their victims. The Guardian columnist Zoe Williams describes this distinction: Trolls aren't necessarily any more pleasant than haters, but their agenda is different – they don't just want to insult a particular person, they want to start a fight – hopefully one that has a broader application, and brings in more people than just the object of their original trolling. The term derives from a fishing technique – say your stupid thing, watch the world bite. 政 治 大
It is understandable why the terms “flaming” and “hating” have been associated or used 立
interchangeably with trolling; It is because trolls commonly flame and hate in their everyday ‧ 國
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interactions with other online users and communities. There is significant overlap in these ‧
behaviors whenever they appear online, so there is need to recognize that most times, their sit
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borders are not so clear cut. io
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Trolls have also been commonly likened to hackers. One study compared Wikipedia v
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knowledge to cause damage to the system” (Shachaf & Hara, 2010, p. 10). In 2012, when Gawker writer Adrian Chen (2012) “doxxed,” or revealed the real identity of whom he thought was the internet’s greatest troll at that time, Violentacrez, he compared him to a hacker: “A troll exploits social dynamics like computer hackers exploit security loopholes…” Violentacrez was a Reddit user who posted sexualized pictures of young girls women without their knowledge or permission (more about this in the section about Reddit trolls). Just like Wikipedia and Reddit, trolls on other online platforms also find ways to manipulate the system in which they occupy themselves. For example, Facebook and Twitter trolls often 23 register multiple accounts, all under false names, even though the policies of both social media platforms stipulate the use of real names. Many trolls are actually capable hackers such as famous hacktivist group Anonymous and renowned troll, Weev, both of which shall be mentioned more in detail later. Like Anonymous and Weev, a large segment of trolls are legitimate hackers and have been known for altering or taking down websites, distributing denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and hacking user accounts. In some comparably mischievous episodes, the 4chan image board community flooded adult videos onto YouTube on what is known as “YouTube Porn 政 治 大
Day” (Courtney, 2009) and Anonymous hacked Time magazine’s 2009 online poll for the 立
“Top 100 most influential people” (Singel, 2009). ‧ 國
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Trolls are also commonly grouped with their online gaming cousins, the griefers, e.g. white-­‐eyed griefers prevalent in Taiwanese gaming culture (Sun, 2005). While the two terms ‧
are often used interchangeably, griefing is more platform-­‐specific and used chiefly in gaming y
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contexts. Griefers are known to utilize in-­‐game structures to intentionally harass and cause distress to other users (Kirman et al., 2012). al
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The case of LambdaMOO is a famous of a griefer/hacker/online troll. Julian h e negxample chi U
Dibbel’s (1998) essay, a “Rape in Cyberspace,” recounts a popular text-­‐based roleplaying game platform in the early days of the internet known as Multi User Dungeon Object Oriented, or MOO. One user, named Mr. Bungle, hacked the system and used a "voodoo doll" subprogram to force other users’ avatars to perform sexual acts against their will. Many users condemned Mr. Bungle’s actions as a “breach of civility” and victims were deeply offended, regardless that the acts were rooted in “virtual” spaces. Dibbell writes of the ensuing consequences of Mr. Bungle’s mischief: 24 Months later, the woman in Seattle would confide to me that as she wrote those words posttraumatic tears were streaming down her face — a real-­‐life fact that should suffice to prove that the words’ emotional content was no mere fiction. Where real life, on the other hand, insists the incident was only an episode in a free-­‐form version of Dungeons and Dragons, confined to the realm of the symbolic and at no point threatening any player’s life, limb, or material well-­‐being, here now was the player exu issuing aggrieved and heartfelt calls for Mr. Bungle’s dismemberment. 政 治 大
Mr. Bungle’s orchestration of “online rape” brought up intriguing issues about how to 立
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handle such unique and odd violations, as community members deliberated Mr. Bungle’s fate. Eventually, Mr. Bungle’s account was terminated and a new system was implemented ‧
in which users could democratically decide rules and regulations for their community. Nat
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likely to work in groups while most trolls prefer to work individually (“Wikipedia,” 2015). i
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including in the context of YouTube, may at times resort to trolling as a team sport. Although trolls and griefers are similar in many respects, this dissertation will regard griefers as exclusive to gaming culture. Much literature about online negativity and hateful acts revolve around cyberbullying, another term often confused with trolling. One thing that is notably very different from trolling is that “cyberbullying,” also known as “cyberharassment” or “cyberstalking,” often targets a specific individual, whereas trolls often obtain “lulz” from anyone who is unsuspecting enough to fall into a troll’s trap. Such is the case of Amanda 25 Todd, a Canadian girl who eventually committed suicide at the age of 15 after being extensively cyberbullied online. Amanda’s nightmare began when she met a stranger online who flattered her to the point of convincing her to flash her breasts online. A year later, her topless photos surfaced online and went viral; then things went rapidly downhill. Multiple cyberbullies sent her emails, death threats, even mail and phone calls to her home address. She was beaten up by classmates, forced to change school multiple times and suffered multiple psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, and panic disorder resulting from cyber and real life bullying. 政 治 大
With her reputation ruined and life in shambles, Amanda was involved in a botched 立
suicide attempt before finally succeeding in taking her life on October 10, 2012. Even ‧ 國
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following her death, the harassment persists as her mom continues to receive negative messages online and offline regarding Amanda. In a recent update, a 35-­‐year old man in the ‧
Netherlands was charged in April 2014 for connection with Amanda Todd’s suicide (“The y
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Amanda Todd Story,” 2014). This is an extreme case of cyberbullying, which initially began with one cyberbully and then exploded into a throng of cyber-­‐bullies, with no connection to al
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one another whatsoever except the fact ormenting the same victim. This h tehat i tU
ntghey cwhere also demonstrates how cyberbullying can often escalate or occur in tandem with real life bullying, as the lines between the online world and reality are often blurred. Slonje and Smith (2008) define cyberbullying as “an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who can not easily defend him or herself” (p. 147). While trolls may hold certain similar characteristics as cyberbullies, they often do not purposefully target one person over and over again. Many cyberbullying cases, such as that of Amanda Todd’s, are directly targeted to a single person but these bullies could also be seen as the directed 26 effort of a mass group of trolls. Most trolls do not have specific individual targets at any given time but in some instances, if they deem it worthy enough, trolls may rally together to target a sole individual, engaging in what appears to be cyberbullying. However, the typical troll is not interested in getting “lulz” from one specific source, but indiscriminately harasses everyone and anyone who latches onto their lures. While trolls may hold certain similar characteristics as cyberbullies, they often do not purposefully target one person over and over again. Trolls also employ a wide range of tactics to cause distress to their victims instead of outright bullying. 政 治 大
Another distinction is that cyberbullies often personally know who they are targeting 立
(Nicol, 2013), while the victim may or may not be aware of their aggressor, so cyberbullies ‧ 國
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may not always be anonymous. Trolls often do not have such clear target; instead they wreak havoc wherever they can find it, and often the pleasure comes from never knowing ‧
who will fall into their trap. Studies have also found that cyberbullies were more prone to be y
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offline bullies and online victims were also more likely to be victims in real life (Nicol, 2013). This demonstrates that some cyberbullies may not necessarily need to hide behind al
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anonymity in order to reveal their true hanti-­‐social tendencies. engchi U
Mic Wright (2012) of the Telegraph makes the case that society labels all online abuse as trolling when in fact, some of it should be considered outright bullying. He suggests that cyberbullies are the “extreme adherents” of trolls who take their campaigns offline, finding home addresses and phone numbers. Wright explains: The term “trolling” has been hijacked to mean this bullying, hectoring, constant abuse that some internet users believe they have a right to dish out. It is grotesquely euphemistic. The boys who bullied me as a teenager were not 27 trolls, they were bullies, and so are those who lash out from the virtual darkness. Once again, this demonstrates that the line between trolling and other negative online behaviors such as cyberbullying are often blurred and difficult to define. At the complete opposite side of the spectrum of cyberbullying, trolling may be also be slightly akin to the less severe phenomenon of “online mischief,” as described by Kirman et. al. (2012). Examples of online mischief may be characterized as animating sexual paraphernalia in online games or subverting gameplay other than what originally intended 政 治 大
by the games’ designers. Interestingly, all examples given by Kirman et. al. (2012) were 立
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based on online gaming. Though the motivation for both online mischief and trolling behaviors may be for fun, the difference between the two lies in intent. Kirman (2012) ‧
writes, “The key to mischief is the apparent attitude of playfulness – the mischievous user Nat
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knows there are limits, and the intent is to do no harm” (p. 4). Online mischief does not n
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appear to cause significant emotional distress and harm to others as is the case of trolling. i
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Conversely, Kirman reasons that trolls are aware of the boundaries but intentionally choose Ch
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to cross the line anyways. However, if the user exhibits an air of playfulness, knows there are limits and their intent is to do no harm, then their actions may be otherwise regarded as “online mischief.” To reiterate, trolling is often confused with other online behaviors that are frowned upon by the general public such as hacking, griefing, cyberbullying and even online mischief, but this is not without reasons. The boundaries between these different types of aberrational behaviors are often not so clearly defined and trolls are extremely mysterious characters that tend to shift between the lines. They may engage in any or none of these 28 select behaviors when trolling. In the coming sections, we will begin to scrutinize trolls within specific contexts and at times, there is noticeable overlap between trolling and other deviant behaviors as described in this chapter. 立
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2.5 Trolls Come in all Shapes and Sizes As previously noted, the earliest semblance of the internet troll were manifested in discussion boards and online threads such as Usenet or MUDs (Multi-­‐User Dungeon), text-­‐
based multiplayer games. Trolls on these platforms might initially feign sincerity to gain acceptance from the community before they begin to reveal their true colors, such as Kent on the online feminist board. Although trolls commonly appear to be regular users or members of an online community, they often do not adhere to the norms and are mainly interested in the provocation of others (Karppi, 2013). 政 治 大
Hardaker (2010) claimed that varying degrees of anonymity in asynchronous 立
computer-­‐mediated-­‐communication (CMC) -­‐ such as that of online boards, forums and ‧ 國
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other online community venues -­‐ leads a sense of impunity thus making inappropriate ‧
behavior more likely. Hardaker’s study of impoliteness on UseNet user boards led her to identify four characteristics of trolling deception, aggression, disruption and success all of y
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which are observable Herring et al.’s (2002) study of Kent. In his initial appearance on the feminist board, Kent 1) deceived board members into believing he was genuinely interested al
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h e n gto c2) hintentionally in feminism and its principles, then proceeded provoke members of the i U
community by posting flame-­‐bait, 3) disrupted the community by drawing them into futile argument, and he ultimately 4) succeeded in causing trouble to this entire feminist community through these tactics. Hardaker’s four characteristics of trolls is particularly significant and will be used as the standard of analysis for this study on YouTube trolls, explained later in the methodology section. We’d like to assume that members of modern day online boards and forums are much more capable in dealing with trolls than those featured in Herring et. al.’s (2002) decade old study, but that doesn’t mean that trolls have disappeared from these types of 30 online communities. Trolls still run rampant across a myriad of online platforms, most of which are also asynchronous computer-­‐mediated-­‐communication, and especially those communities where members are particularly passionate about a certain subject. This becomes quickly apparent for anyone who has read YouTube comments or any other website which hosts a commenting system. For example, fervent fans of famous YouTube star PewDiePie will attack anyone who hints at the smallest iota of criticism against the star -­‐ it is precisely these kinds of over-­‐zealous communities which trolls gather immense satisfaction from stirring up. 政 治 大
But not all trolls operate in the exact same way that Donath’s (1999) pioneer study 立
detailed years ago. In today’s online world, there are many more outlets for trolls to harass ‧ 國
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and provoke online users, but they are not all the same. Theoretically, the common denominator of all trolls is their inherent goal of malicious troublemaking but depending on ‧
context, different trolls may hold different characteristics -­‐ their motivations, methods, or y
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even demographics may differ from one platform to another. Therefore, it is important to put all trolls into perspective and examine them within the specific platforms they reside al
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within -­‐ such as Wikipedia, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, online newspaper or h e n Tgwitter, chi U
magazine websites, or sometimes they belong to no fixed platform at all such as the hacker group, Anonymous -­‐ in order to understand subtle nuances of how trolls adapt and operate under their own specific environments. 2.5.1 Wikipedia Trolls Wikipedia is a popular user contribution based online encyclopedia with the purpose of harnessing the knowledge of the world. In a study of Wikipedia trolls by Shachaf and Hara 31 (2010), trolls were observed to exhibit the following behaviors: 1) They are engaged in intentional, repetitive and harmful actions, 2) their activities largely violate Wikipedia practices and finally, 3) they are not only active in the encyclopedia portion of the Wikipedia, but are also highly interested and involved in attempting to destroy the Wikipedia community. Wikipedia sysops, community members granted administrative privileges due to their previous contributions to the platform, provided possible motivations of Wikipedia trolls including boredom, attention-­‐seeking, revenge, fun and entertainment, or simply the urge to damage the community and other people. 政 治 大
Although the study has admitted limitations, it did contain a few noteworthy points. 立
Trolls were likened to hackers who “find a leak in the system and take advantage of this ‧ 國
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knowledge in order to cause damage to the system” (Shachaf & Hara, 2010, p. 10). In other words, trolls are manipulators of sorts, whether it be manipulators of human emotions, as ‧
in the case of Facebook RIP trolls as we will examine shortly, or the technological platforms y
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2.5.2 Reddit Trolls Another popular online platform, Reddit, is a news aggregate website in which users can submit links to pictures, gifs, articles, websites, etc., and all content is voted upon by other members. There are two famous incidents of trolls in Reddit’s history discussed below. The first is that of Violentacrez, a pronounced Reddit member who was responsible for Reddit pages (named subreddits) such as r/Creepshots and r/Jailbait, which included sexualized pictures of young woman or women who were photographed in public without 32 their consent. In 2012, news site Gawker’s Adrian Chen (2012), revealed the offline identity of Violentacrez (a white male office worker from Texas) on the basis that he was the “biggest troll on the web” and accused him of releasing “an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed” to Reddit. Many scholars have noted that just like Violentacrez, trolls have predominantly been white, male, and perhaps young and privileged; Additionally, their targets typically include women and other vulnerable populations such as racial minorities (Herring et al., 2002; Milner, 2013; Phillips, 2011, 2012, 2013; F. Shaw, 2013). 政 治 大
The second infamous troll Reddit’s history is user Grandpa Wiggly whose quirky and 立
whimsical life stories were all taken to be the truth until community members uncovered ‧ 國
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that the beloved character was just a figment of fiction. Analyzing Grandpa Wiggly’s character in line with Donath’s definition of a troll, Bergstrom argued that although it is true ‧
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intended for his character to be taken seriously to begin with. y
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in the creator’s intentions. Bergstrom m
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then Grandpa Wiggly was a character created to entertain the Reddit community and there was no harm intended, therefore Grandpa Wiggly’s creator was, in fact, not a troll as many Redditors labeled him. Bergstrom further argued that trolls need to know that they are trolling; to troll is to do so willingly and intentionally. Thus, trolling is distinguishable from more benign and playful practices such as online mischief (Kirman et al., 2012). 2.5.3 Trolls on Facebook: the Memorial Troll 33 There are a few different types of trolls that inhabit the Facebook ecosystem, such as the playful “Doppelganger troll” but the most infamous and extreme is that of Facebook memorial trolls, also known as RIP trolls. Memorial trolls seek out memorial Facebook pages of the recently deceased, including those who have committed suicide, and post incendiary comments or pictures which “mobilize negative effects and presumably want some reaction to their posts” (Karppi, 2013, p. 285). In her extensive coverage of the phenomenon, Phillips (2011) has noted that RIP trolls take social cues from their audiences and play upon the most sensitive people and most sensitive subjects: 政 治 大
They force their victims to confront precisely those things that motivate the 立
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popularity of memorial pages – fear of helplessness, fear of losing a loved on, fear of human parts. Thus RIP trolls post pictures of car crashes onto crash ‧
victims’ pages. They post pictures of dead kids onto dead kids’ pages. They Nat
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post movie stills from films like ‘Dumb and Dumber’ captioned with the n
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Family members set up a memorial page for Matthew Kocher after he died from drowning at camp. The page soon attracted trolls who posted shocking pictures such as a “submerged person's hand breaking through the water with text reading ‘LOL u drowned you fail at being a fish’” (Pratt, 2013). There are many other instances of memorial page trolling throughout the internet. As explained earlier, trolls are similar to hackers as they manipulate their environments. The infrastructure for Facebook is an ideal ecosystem for trolls to thrive because it is a social media platform centered around the user and the user experience, so 34 Facebook users are primed to take things personally (Phillips, 2011). Facebook users are expected to register their real name and personal information, removing the anonymity that exists in most other parts of the internet, but many trolls simply register under aliases or fake names and may also create multiple accounts so they can continue their work undisrupted if an account is terminated. From this example of RIP Facebook trolls, we also observe instances of trolls who proclaim they are undertaking a deeper cause that transcends the superficial guise of lulz gathering. A majority of RIP trolls claim their efforts were directed at “grief tourists,” users 政 治 大
that have no real-­‐life connection to the deceased victims and who, in the trolls’ minds, 立
“could not possibly be mourning” (Phillips, 2012). These users, as pointed out by trolls, are ‧ 國
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mostly obsessed with “cute white dead girls,” similar in the way that media will only selectively broadcast news of a white girl being murdered, e.g. the Chelsea King case, when ‧
in fact there many other female rape and murder cases throughout the world every day. In y
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this way, some trolls are self-­‐declared as righteous, working to undermine the existing hegemony in current society but others state that most times, politics are simply accidental n
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2.5.4 Trolls on Online Newspaper/Magazine websites Perhaps one of internet’s closest present day iterations to the traditional community forum or board trolls are newspaper or magazine websites trolls, who post comments on these sites which are intended to generate negative reactions. Many news or magazine websites include a comments section because the advantages are two-­‐fold – business-­‐wise, it simply generates revenue, and it also helps to foster a sense of community among users 35 and between the users and the publication (Turner, 2010). However, when trolls show up to the scene, they are known to decrease these benefits, employing a range of tactics including disrupting conversations or Donath’s described use of pseudo-­‐naïve behavior, e.g. the concern troll who “couches his or her attempts to derail discussion in terms of concern, thereby maintaining ‘civility’ while also engaging in trolling behaviour” (F. Shaw, 2013, p. 102). In magazine and newspaper websites, trolls may visit an article about a controversial issue which community members are especially passionate or sensitive about and post 政 治 大
comments that purposefully vies against the views of the majority, also known as flame-­‐bait, 立
in hopes of sparking virulent responses. This is comparable to posting a comment on an ‧
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the first place. 學
article about a soldier’s death, and placing blame on the soldier for enlisting in the army in Such behaviors are also consistent with Hopkinson’s (2013) view of trolls in terms of y
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out-­‐group and in-­‐group dynamics. Trolls are described as out-­‐group members who do not share the norms of the majority community, which is known as the in-­‐group. Similarly, other al
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research has pointed to trolls not contributing U goals (Haque, 2014). Apart h e n gto cthe hgiroup’s from harassing individual members or the community, trolls are also notorious for targeting the journalists or article writers themselves since they are seen as a being in a position of power (Binns, 2012). Trolls in these instances can be extremely damaging to the overall community and the websites’ owners. Therefore, there has been an increased push in finding ways to deal with trolls or, at least, learning how to minimize their negative effects. 2.5.5 Twitter Trolls 36 Twitter is one the internet’s largest social networking sites in which users can broadcast short 140-­‐character messages called “tweets.” Many Twitter users, especially women, are the subject of abuse by trolls. Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington continuously receives abuse on the site with many accusing her of letting down her country after she won the bronze medal in the 2012 London Olympics, while others insult her on her appearance calling her “ugly” or comparing her to a “dolphin” or “whale” (Alexandra Topping, 2014). Like Adlington, the trend is for women to be common targets of trolls on Twitter and 政 治 大
other online platforms in general. American writer and film criticism editor Lindy West is 立
commonly criticized by online trolls because of her overweight appearance. After West ‧ 國
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wrote an critical article about mainstream misogyny and blasting the portrayal of rape in the comedy world, backlash quickly appeared in the form of trollish tweets, some of which read ‧
“She won’t ever have to worry about rape” or “No one would want to rape that fat, y
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disgusting mess” (West, 2015). West also wrote about an especially daunting experience in which a troll created a fake twitter account under her dad’s name in order to torment her. al
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As far as internet platforms are hconcerned, Twitter e n g c h i Uis especially conducive to trollish behaviors demonstrated by the many who exploit the medium as a means of spewing hate and antagonizing others, many under accounts registered with fake names or pseudonyms. Similar to Facebook memorial trolls, some Twitter trolls may also harass users who have recently lost a loved one, e.g. creating fake accounts in the name of lost relatives. There are many similar high-­‐profile cases of users driven off Twitter because of trolls including American pop singer Nicki Minaj, comedian Matt Lucas, screenwriter Jane Goldman, actor and presenter Stephen Fry and actress Jennifer Lawrence, among many others (Cohen, 37 2014). Perhaps there is at least one advantage to be gleaned from these many high-­‐profile twitter exits. In a New York Times article, researcher Claire Hardaker explained: As more high-­‐profile cases come to light, particularly of celebrities and high-­‐
profile figures being chased off of social media, more people will view trolling as a way of having an effect on these otherwise apparently untouchable figures from the safety of their own smartphones and homes (Manjoo, 2014). The sheer number of Twitter users, famous or not, quitting the platform because of trolls 政 治 大
has raised the attention of social media’s top figures. In February 2015, Twitter CEO Dick 立
Costolo came out forcibly on the issue of trolls, admitting that their platform loses “core ‧ 國
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user after core user” because of trolls and that they are committed to solving their troll er
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collaboration is known as Anonymous, which in recent times has received significant media attention for its stunts and antics. However, many have struggled to explain what is Anonymous and the loosely connected group of trolls which makes up its ranks, for its member identities are unknown and purpose veritably enigmatic. They shall be briefly mentioned here to illustrate how trolls can take all kinds of forms, even crossing into the real world. Anonymous, whose members are known as “Anons,” originated from the famous 4chan image board website, more specifically its first and most popular random board, or 38 /b/. 4chan’s “anonymity” and “ephemerality” are critical to “shaping a strong communal identity among a very large set of individuals” and a cause for the site’s “influence on internet culture and memes,” respectively (Bernstein et al., 2011, p. 46). Like many others, author Quinn Norton struggled to define Anonymous. One explanation he encountered was NYU Professor and Anonymous researcher Biella Coleman’s metaphor of the trickster god archetype. Norton (2011) writes: The trickster isn’t the good guy or the bad guy, it’s the character that exposes contradictions, initiates change and moves the plot forward. One minute, the 政 治 大
loving and heroic trickster is saving civilization. A few minutes later the same 立
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trickster is cruel, kicking your ass and eating babies as a snack. ‧
After grappling at length with the concept of Anonymous, Norton finally concluded sit
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of lulz. “Anonymous wasn’t made for easy times,” writes Norton (2011), “The trickster sleeps when all is well.” Anonymous has been associated with a range of questionable stunts, which includes flooding YouTube with pornography, hacking Time Magazine’s 2009 list of Most Influential People (Singel, 2009) and waging an ideological war against the Church of Scientology, also known as Project Chanology (4chan reference). Apart from pure internet antics, Anonymous has also maintained its relevance in recent years by taking on an activist approach to real world events, occasionally crossing into the political arena. Some notable entries include Anonymous’ involvement in the Arab Spring movement, the Occupy movement, the 2014 39 Hong Kong student Sunflower movement, and most recently in the war against terrorism when they have since shut down multiple websites and social media accounts linked to the ISIS terrorist group (Petroff, 2015). 2.5.7 YouTube Trolls A few years back, a popular form of trolling which utilized YouTube was termed “rickrolling.” Rickrolling was a bait and switch technique in which a person would provide a 政 治 大
hyperlink relevant to the topic at hand but when clicked, users are led to a YouTube video 立
of Rick Astley’s 1987 hit song "Never Gonna Give You Up." As their 2008 April Fool’s Day ‧ 國
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prank, YouTube even used this method to troll its own users -­‐ they redirected all videos on their main page to Astley’s song. ‧
Other than this mischievous bait and switch form of trolling, there are two broad y
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categories of trolling on the YouTube platform, the first includes creating and uploading original content meant to troll others while the second variety includes posting nasty al
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remarks in a video’s comments section hin order to troll U users (the video creator or e n g c h i specific other commentators) or the entire community of users. These behaviors may overlap as with individuals who take part in both kinds of YouTube trolling. An infamous, yet extreme example of a content troll is that of 2012’s The Innocence of Muslims, a YouTube video uploaded Egyptian-­‐American Nakoula Basselely Nakoula. The video portrayed the prophet Mohammed as a sex-­‐obsessed violent pedophile and sparked widespread outrage by Muslim populations across the world, as intended by its creator. Unfortunately, because of characters such as Nakoula, in conjunction with deeper issues of cultural misunderstanding, many violent protests ensued across the Middle East. Violence 40 further escalated when a Libyan embassy was rocket bombed a few months later, causing the deaths of a U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans. MacKinnon and Zuckerman (2012) argued that Nakoula and other central individuals involved in fueling the fire were essentially trolls because they “attempt to hijack a discussion through harassment or inflammatory content hoping to provoke emotional response” (p.18). Nakoula’s example is an extreme one but it provides a clear testament to the sheer power and influence that popular video sharing platforms, such as YouTube, command over its viewers and how online events can quickly traverse into real world issues on a global scale. 政 治 大
A more mischievous instance of content trolling occurred in 2009, titled “Operation 立
YouTube,” (also known as “YouTube Porn Day”) and was undertaken by the formerly ‧ 國
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mentioned Anonymous group. In the operation, Anonymous, 4chan and eBaum’s World community members spammed YouTube with porn videos under than tag “marblecake” ‧
(Courtney, 2009). YouTube is usually able to monitor and flag videos that are inappropriate y
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for viewing but Anonymous members made it difficult for moderators since they uploaded individual videos across a great number of accounts. Also, all videos were initially uploaded al
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as private in order to escape the radars moderators. Members later, at a hoef YnouTube gchi U
predetermined moment, set all videos to public (“Operation YouTube,” n.d.), unleashing a massive upsurge of porn onto the website in one fell swoop. Once YouTube moderators caught on and began filtering and removing videos associated with the “marblecake” tag, Anonymous members switched to alternate tags, including “swine flu,” “twilight” and “jonas brothers.” In addition, members began flagging compliant videos in order to confuse the YouTube administrators as to which videos were actually inappropriate or not. Typical YouTube trolls are rarely as controversial as Nakoula and nowhere near as organized as Anonymous, through their actions may be sometimes be characterized as 41 playful mischief. A few trollish videos on YouTube dispense false or harmful advice designed to make other users seem foolish. Examples include “How to Increase Your Wi-­‐Fi Signal” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QJ2vESMwEc) where an “expert” provides a DIY demonstration to boosting your computer’s Wi-­‐Fi signal by wrapping an Ethernet cord around their cell phone. Other trolls like Durham Francis, voted # 1 of the Top 10 Biggest YouTube Trolls has vehemently denied the existent of tornadoes and has posted several questionable videos to support his argument (Park, 2012). The bulk of YouTube trolls, however, lurk in the comments section, posting 政 治 大
inflammatory (Moor et al., 2010) and provocative messages in order to rile up fellow 立
community members and instigate heated exchanges. This is not surprising as YouTube has ‧ 國
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long been notorious for its cesspool of negative, offensive, and inane comments. Lynch (2014) even claimed the site as “home to arguably some of the nastiest comments on the ‧
Web.” Randall Munroe wrote in one of his popular XKCD webcomic, “The internet has y
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For the past several years, Justin U in relation to the young h Beieber n gacnd hall i videos heartthrob have been a popular target for trolls who post an assortment of unpleasant comments such as: I was in a coma for months, one day the nurse turned on the radio, JB was playing…I got up and turned off the radio. This is how JB saved my life. Another writes: “Justin i am afraid no fence i will haveto remove your final breath from body as your music poor also brushyour teeths”. 42 While these comments may be aimed at Justin Bieber, many times they are also intended to evoke negative responses from his fans, commonly young teenage girls also known as “Beliebers.” Not only are famous celebrities commonly targeted by trolls, but so are famous YouTube stars, as we will examine in the following sections. This thesis will observe trolls who try to instigate the most popular YouTube user as of this thesis’ publication, PewDiePie, and his massive fan base. In essence, YouTube trolls and their tracks are apparent throughout the entire video-­‐
sharing platform. From individuals posting trollish comments about the Twilight movies to 政 治 大
others leaving negative comments on videos about Gingers (red-­‐headed people), trolls 立
seemingly congregate the most where entire communities are very passionate about a ‧ 國
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certain subject. YouTube provides such fertile grounds for negativism and disrespect that, at times, it almost seems to encourage users to partake in trollish behaviors. y
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2.6 Investigating the Deeper Implications of Trolls It’s hard to read about these trolls and not wonder, “What lies behind the mask?” As pointed out in the previous chapter, Anonymous originated from the 4chan community which was comprised primarily of white males. Similarly, multiple academics have either observed firsthand or deduced that a majority of online trolls fall under a specific distinguishable demographic – young, white males. Whitney Phillips (2011), an academic who spent a considerable amount of time interacting with trolls for her research, noted that trolling is generally a male dominated “sausagefest.” She supported her claim by stating: 政 治 大
I have every reason to believe that the majority of trolls on the English-­‐
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speaking web are…white, male and somewhat privileged. Not because I have personally counted all the trolls on the English-­‐speaking web, but because ‧
trolls perform these characteristics. They enact gendered dominance ("your Nat
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(for example the assertion that nothing on the Internet should be taken engchi
seriously). They have enough free time to sink hours and hours into their online exploits, and have access to the necessary technologies to do so. I am entirely comfortable asserting these basic symbolic demographics. (Phillips, 2012) Both Phillips (2011) and Milner (2013) mentioned that media collectives traditionally have been predominantly white males. Meanwhile Adrian Chen, who famously doxxed 44 Violentacrez (also a white male) on Reddit, has also repeatedly echoed similar claims of white males dominating trollish practices. Just as it is human nature to hate, discriminate, and even fear those who are “different,” most troll victims -­‐ women, gays, and minorities -­‐ are identifiably polar opposites of typical trolls -­‐ young, white and male (C. Chen, 2012). These groups are also vulnerable targets in real life and more likely to be stigmatized and discriminated against in mainstream society. Ironically, such groups, which are more likely to seek support online for “suffering from disease or abuse, and to members of minority social and political groups 政 治 大
such as homosexuals, racial minorities, and feminists” (Herring et al., 2002, p. 371), are also 立
most likely to be victimized online. ‧ 國
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In regards to race, academics have noticed that a large amount of troll humor, such as that found on 4chans’ /b/ board, is directed at ethnic minorities, particularly African ‧
Americans (Phillips, 2013). Milner (2013) described this phenomenon as the internet’s y
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gravitation towards white centrality, as seen in abundant memes where minority races were emphasized while the critiques of whites did not emphasize race. This, he said, “reinforces al
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the invisibility of dominant whiteness ih
n its critique of iclass” e n g c h U (Milner, 2013, p. 76). Phillips (2013) details the importance of one’s whiteness, or lack thereof, in the 4chan community: Even when engaging in racially neutral humor, anons take their own whiteness, and the whiteness of their audience, for granted; on the rare occasion that an anon comes forward as non-­‐white, he or she must self-­‐
identify, that is, flag him or herself as racially Other. (p.6) While trolls frequently target homosexuals and ethnic minorities, a common thread throughout much of this thesis reveals that the most vulnerable and victimized group of 45 trollish behaviors are indeed women. Recall for instance the early example of Kent the troll who tormented a feminist board community for months or Reddit’s Violentacrez who achieved online fame by posting sexualized pictures of women taken without their knowledge or consent. Other famous examples include Zelda Williams whose Twitter feed amassed a torrent of atrocious content after her celebrity father, Robin Williams, passed away and Amanda Todd, the teenage girl who was bullied by online trolls to the point of taking her own life. Some women, like Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington, are constantly harassed via their social media accounts while many other female celebrities such as Nicki 政 治 大
Minaj, Jennifer Lawrence, Lily James and Jane Goldman have outright walked away from 立
their Twitter accounts because of trolls (Cohen, 2014). ‧ 國
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And consider the example of Chelsea King, Alexis Pilkington, Nicole Catsouras, Hannah Smith, and Caitlin Talley, all of who had memorial pages that were targeted by RIP ‧
trolls. The list goes on and on for the enormous number of women who were trolled and y
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abused online solely because of their gender. Moosa (2014) summed it by stating, “Every week brings a new reminder women are not welcome – especially on the internet.” al
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Many women, like Anita Sarkeesian, h e nare gtcargeted h i Ufor their feministic beliefs or simply because they are women whose ideas have attracted some attention online. Sarkeesian, who has been actively raising awareness about the diminishing or disparaging portrayal of women in video games, has been a major target of trolls over the past few years. In addition to standard threats and insults, some trolls have impersonated Saerkeesian while others have disseminated false and damaging information about her. She’s also received doctored pictures of video game characters raping her or her head photoshopped onto porn stills. Sarkeesian was even forced to cancel a scheduled speech at a university after receiving multiple death and rape threats. 46 Like Sarkeesian, another prominent female figure, Kathy Sierra, had been the target of online trolls for years simply because she was, in her own words, receiving “too much attention” (Sierra, 2014). One of her most dedicated trolls includes the infamous Weev, also known as Andrew Auernheimer, who completely damaged her career when he spread false rumors about her. With Sierra’s reputation in utter shambles, she was left with no other option but to walk away from the internet scene for many years before she returned and retaliated with a stinging tell-­‐all about Weev and internet trolls in general. An important concept Sierra raised in her exposition was that trolls tend to target 政 治 大
people they feel are undeserving of attention from others. Sierra’s theory, termed “Koolaid 立
points,” posited that hate for a brand is greatest when a critical mass of brand users/fans ‧ 國
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have started to “drink the Koolaid” -­‐ a popular American powered mix drink. “In other words,” Sierra said, “The hate wasn’t so much about the product/brand but that other ‧
people were falling for it.” She also details why trolls like Weev might despise individuals, y
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I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”, “favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid.” Apparently, that just can’t be allowed. From the hater’s POV, you (the Koolaid server) do not “deserve” that attention. You are “stealing” an audience. From their angry, frustrated point of view, the idea that others listen to you is insanity. From their emotion-­‐
fueled view you don’t have readers you have cult followers. That just can’t be 47 allowed. You must be stopped. And if they cannot stop you, they can at least ruin your quality of life. A standard goal, in troll culture, I soon learned, is to cause “personal ruin.” They aren’t all trolls, though. Some of those who seek to stop and/or ruin you are misguided/misinformed but well-­‐intended. They actually believe in a cause, and they believe you (or rather the Koolaid you’re serving) threatens that cause. (Sierra, 2014) Once again, the concept of the “lulz” resurfaces when Sierra claims that trolls are basically sociopaths who engage in these kool-­‐aid point based attacks out of pure malice – 政 治 大
in other words, trolls do it for the “lulz.” This also explains why many celebrities and their 立
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fans are popular targets for trolls – just think of Justin Bieber and Twilight, whose fan-­‐base consists primarily of young teenage girls. ‧
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historian Mary Beard who received abuse over Twitter. Both West’s and Beard’s cases are Ch
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significant because of the stark revelations revealed after they decided to confront their troll tormentors. When West decided to share online about her troll ordeal and the grief it was causing her, she was surprised to receive an email the next day. Apparently, her troll had a change of heart and wrote her a lengthy and genuine apology. Her troll even donated $50 to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, where West’s dad was treated. When Mary Beard decided to name and shame University student Oliver Rawlings who had sent her abusive tweets on Twitter, it prompted Rawlings to make a public apology on his own Twitter account and in person during a scheduled meeting between the two 48 (Ellis-­‐Petersen, 2014). Later, Beard felt that Rawlings should not suffer for "one moment of idiocy" and thus agreed to write job recommendation letters for Rawlings. Beard also confronted another of her trolls whom she discovered was having financial problems and decided to help him. She now periodically receives emails from her former troll, one of which read, “Mary, are you all right? I was worried about you." Many are often surprised by what they find when they delve behind the troll’s mask. Adrian Chen (2012) experienced this firsthand when he confronted Reddit’s notorious Violentacrez. Chen discovered Violentacrez was just a normal office worker named Michael 政 治 大
Brutsch who said he just enjoyed “riling people up” in his spare time. During their phone 立
confrontation, Brutsch pleaded with Chen not to reveal his personal information because he ‧ 國
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had a disabled wife and it would negatively affect his job. Journalist Mike Deri Smith also noted similar parallels during his endeavors in ‧
befriending and exposing trolls such as the “detestable, horrible” John Nimmo who, at the y
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time, was abusing English female political campaigner Caroline Criado-­‐Perez (M. D. Smith, 2015). Through successfully unmasking numerous trolls over the years, Smith is greeted by n
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They are all very boastful and very arrogant online, but the moment you confront them they very quickly beg you not to reveal who they are. They say they didn't mean any of it and they're really, really scared. When you do unmask them, you realise what sad cases they are. They just want to get a rise out of their victims. They aren't even playground bullies. They're not strong, they don't have any way of physically harming you. They all know the stuff they're saying is awful. Really bad. They crumble. They realise they're 49 not the people they pretended to be online. They're weak people who don't stand by what they've said. You get the sense they had no idea what's right and wrong online. (M. D. Smith, 2015) Both trolls met pitiful fates: After being outed by Chen in 2012, Violentacrez’s Michael Brutsch was fired from his job as an application developer and John Nimmo was jailed for 12 weeks in early 2014 after Smith revealed his involvement in harassing Criado-­‐Perez (Cockerell, 2014). These cases reveal that behind the sadistic and sociopathic portraits that we paint of 政 治 大
trolls, lies a being that may still retain a kernel of humanity. There lies some hope that not 立
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all trolls are purely evil creatures bent on destroying other’s lives, but perhaps they are more like misguided souls tempted by the forbidden fruit of “lulz.” Phillips witnessed ‧
firsthand how even the most reviled of trolls are still humans underneath the layers of filth. Nat
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She wrote of Facebook memorial trolls: al
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are subject to complicated and hsometimes e n g ccontradictory h i U influences, the people n
[Trolls], of course; just as the targets of trolling are real people living real lives and behind the trolls are just as fully and perhaps even more conspicuously human” (Phillips, 2011). Considering the points raised in this section, we learn that academic discourse thus far has identified the majority of online trolls, at least in the western world, to be young white males who frequently target females and minority groups. This study will attempt to investigate these discriminatory implications of trolls in further depth. Furthermore, I would 50 also like to examine the possibility motivation of trolls based on Sierra West’s hypothesis of “Koolaid points,” which is an extension of the “lulz.” 立
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2.7 Extending Research to YouTube Platform Up until now, online trolls and their effects have been the focus of several academic research studies. However, it remains a difficult task to delineate a common set of features that is encompassing of all trolls. That is because they are all very different beings, defined primarily by the specific context in which they manifest themselves. Taking into account the various iterations of trolls examined throughout this thesis, we can encapsulate the concept of an online troll in broad terms as individuals who maliciously seek to trouble or disrupt other online users and communities. Depending on their immediate context -­‐ e.g. online 政 治 大
boards, newspaper/magazine sites, or social media sites -­‐ their motivations, victims, and 立
practices may vary greatly. ‧ 國
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without their consent, may have caused distress to the individuals identified in the photographs, but many others in the Reddit community actually supported and even y
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admired the character. Wikipedia trolls also cause trouble to different individuals (e.g. sysops, Wikipedia contributing community) and in different ways (repetitively altering or al
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haes Fnacebook deleting post) than those characterized trolls who target grief tourists, or g c hRiIP U
anyone who might be emotionally connected with the deceased whose memorial page they vandalized. Furthermore, trolls that congregate on websites with commenting systems, may get a rise out of provoking other users into senseless arguments. These are all example of trolls and it is not possible to claim that trolls on a single platform are more “trollish” than those on other platforms. Accepting that trolls differ according to their contexts, it will be helpful to extend research of their existence on the YouTube platform, thus contributing to the growing knowledge of online trolls. YouTube trolls are not only markedly absent in scholarly research 52 but the thorough investigation of their presence and practices would shed light on the differences between trolls according to their specific environments. In addition to the trolls that have been examined in previous literature, I would like to propose the study of YouTube trolls as a means of furthering the general understanding of all online trolls. 2.7.1 The Rise of YouTube Created in 2005 by three former employees of the online commerce website PayPal -­‐ 政 治 大
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, YouTube was their attempt in removing the 立
technical barriers of sharing online videos. At its infancy, the website’s design was simple ‧
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browser software and relatively modest bandwidth. YouTube set no limits on Ch
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the number of videos users could upload, offered basic community functions such as the opportunity to link to other users as friends, and provided URLs and HTML code that enabled videos to be easily embedded into other websites, a feature that capitalized on the recent introduction of popularly accessible blogging technologies. (p. 1) Other than limits on video length, YouTube was similar to other video sharing websites at the time. By 2005, YouTube received its first one million-­‐hit video -­‐ a Nike ad featuring Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho (Dickey, 2013). YouTube’s utility quickly caught 53 the eye of Google, which acquired the startup for a hefty $1.65 billion USD a year later in 2006. Since that time, YouTube’s popularity swiftly escalated, garnering an upwards of 1 billion video views daily by 2008, 2 billion views by 2009, and 4 billion by 2012 (shortymedia, 2013). YouTube is currently the largest video-­‐sharing website in the world with a social media infrastructure that connects a global community of about 1 billion users (“Statistics -­‐ YouTube,” 2005), netting about $2.8 billion of ad revenues in 2014 (Spangler, 2014). Localized in 75 countries and available in 61 languages, YouTube unquestionably commands 政 治 大
an immense amount of influence on the larger world stage. Consider the example of Korean 立
artist Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video which hit worldwide acclaim in a short few weeks ‧ 國
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and was the first YouTube video to acquire 1 billion views, and has claimed over a staggering 2.2 billion views since its 2012 publish date. ‧
Another significant moment in YouTube’s history happened in 2007 with the y
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implementation of its revenue-­‐sharing “Partner Program.” Through the program, Google set up advertisements on partners,’ or content creators’, videos and pocketed 45% of the al
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resulting revenue, with the difference h
going to the uploader. e n g c h i U The fact that many YouTube users, also known as YouTubers, could earn money based on video views is a significant concept that played a large role in the rise of mega-­‐content creators such as PewDiePie, whose character and videos are the focus of this study. Named the greatest invention of 2006 by Time Magazine (Sos, 2006), YouTube has also had a momentous effect on the worldwide community, helping fuel political movements like the Egyptian revolution (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011), catapulting stars such as Psy and Justin Bieber into famedom (Dickey, 2013), allowing users to gather information about the world, and its influence has even been powerful enough to spur international 54 outrage and violence, i.e. The Innocence of Muslims video as earlier mentioned. YouTube retains an important social network structure which includes a community of users who “spend time on the website contributing content, referring to, building on and critiquing each other’s videos, as well as collaborating (and arguing) with one another, as constituting YouTube’s ‘social core’” (Burgess & Green, 2009, p. 58). Considering the vast extent of YouTube’s worldwide power and appeal, I argue that the inclusion of the YouTube platform into the academic discourse of trolls is imperative. Admittedly, YouTube’s commenting system belongs in the realm of computer-­‐mediated-­‐
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communication (CMC) comparable to other web platforms mentioned in this study such as 立
news websites and online boards and forums. However, YouTube is distinct from these ‧ 國
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platforms in which previous troll studies have focused because it is 1) a video-­‐sharing site with a social media ecosystem where millions of users spanning the globe interact with one ‧
another everyday and 2) YouTube brings a new meaning to fanaticism since its videos, as y
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well as the ideas and celebrities they feature, attract scores of passionate fans who make for ideal troll targets because of their extreme sensitivity exacerbated by an overall herd al
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mentality. These reasons distinguish YouTube ts ciommenting system from other CMC-­‐
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based websites, thus warranting its own separate study of trolls. YouTube, however, is a massive website with a billion users uploading hundreds of hours of new material every single minute (“Statistics -­‐ YouTube,” 2005). Given the platform’s overwhelming vastness, it is important specify a framework in which to “collect” YouTube trolls for purposes of this study. In order to narrow down this study’s parameters, I have decided to examine videos of the most subscribed YouTube user, PewDiePie, because he and his fans are popular targets for trolls, as explained in the following chapter. 55 2.7.2 PewDiePie – King of YouTube YouTube contains a social media element similar to Facebook and Twitter, with a community of users that share videos instead of tweets or tidbits about their life. While a large portion of the website’s videos come from users uploading existing traditional media material such as movie and TV show clips, news segments, music videos, etc., much YouTube’s videos derive from user-­‐generated original content (Burgess & Green, 2009). Some of YouTube’s original content creators, mostly younger users, were drawn in through 政 治 大
the medium’s opportunity for self-­‐expression and creativity as touted by YouTube’s motto 立
“Broadcast Yourself.” Others flocked in response to YouTube’s promise of fame and wealth ‧
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through its new partner program: The early YouTube entertainers tended to be outsiders, opportunists, and Nat
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jacks-­‐of-­‐all-­‐trades. They wrote, shot, edited, starred in, and marketed their n
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own videos. Budgets were thin, and so were production values. A bedroom i
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was a typical set, and often the show was one person with a big personality Ch
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talking smack about sports, clothing, or video games into a laptop camera. Teenage audiences loved them. It was an intimate medium on which young fans and the creators they adored could easily socialize. (Gillette, 2014) Young talent with nothing more than a camera and computer could begin publishing content for consumption by a global community of users. Through their video-­‐sharing endeavors, many users ultimately faded into obscurity while others who were especially great at what they did, captured their audience’s hearts and were graced with worldwide fame in a relatively short period of time. Within a span of a few years, YouTube became one 56 of the most popular modes of entertainment for younger generations. For those raised in the current digital generation, it was entertainment for the people, by the people. Many media companies, which just a few years ago were filing copyright lawsuits against YouTube, were now scrambling for a piece of the cake; Disney and Warner Bros. have since bought or invested in various YouTube channels for millions of dollars (Gillette, 2014). YouTube currently prides itself for its repertoire of young and skilled content creators who have successfully capitalized from its partner program and have achieved household name status across the world’s younger audience members. Individuals topping 政 治 大
the charts include 24 year old Hawaii-­‐born comedian nigahiga with 13.8 million subscribers; 立
28 year old female entertainer and personality Jennamarbles with 14.8 million subscribers; ‧ 國
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Smosh, an American comedy duo, both 27 years old, with 19 million subscribers; and HolaSoyGerman, a 24-­‐year-­‐old Chilean comedian with 21.4 million subscribers. ‧
Most impressive is 25-­‐year-­‐old Swedish native Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, most suitably y
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identified by his YouTube moniker PewDiePie, who currently leaves even the second most subscribed channel (YouTube’s own spotlight channel) in the dust. PewDiePie currently al
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manages the most popular YouTube user U most subscribed YouTube h echannel h i the n g c(also channel of all time) with a staggering 35 million subscribers, and counting. That figure is larger than the populations of most countries and if all his subscribers were a country, it would be the 39th most populous country in the world (“Countries With Lower Populations Than PewDiePie’s Subscribers,” 2015). All of that fame and, more technically, subscribers and video views equates to a great deal of financial wealth for PewDiePie. Forbes Magazine estimates that Kjellberg earns approximately $4 million dollars a year through YouTube’s ad revenue system (Kain, 2014), 57 while website statistics compiler Socialblade estimates a range of $978,000 -­‐ $15.6 million (“Pewdiepie YouTube Stats, Channel Statistics,” 2015). Kjellberg began posting gaming videos through YouTube’s Let's Play series in 2010. During this time, he was currently pursuing a degree in Industrial Economics and Technology Management at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden but he left the university in 2011 to focus solely on his YouTube career. Kjellberg’s YouTube username, PewDiePie, comes from the “pew” sound a laser gun makes along with “die,” as in what happens to people who get shot by a laser gun. PewDie was the name of Kjellberg’s first YouTube 政 治 大
account, which he forgot the password to and instead created a new account, amending the 立
final “Pie” as a random addition; The ensuing product is the YouTuber’s household name of ‧ 國
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PewDiePie, or “Pewds” for short. PewDiePie got his start as, in YouTube jargon, a “Let’s Player” whose videos include ‧
himself playing video games with a real-­‐time shot of his face in the bottom corner, y
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broadcasting his facial expressions as he provides running commentary. “Let’s Play” videos differ from video game walkthroughs in that they include the “individual's subjective al
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experience with the game, often with hhumorous, irreverent, e n g c h i U or critical commentary from the gamer, rather than being an objective source of information on how to progress through the game” (“Let’s Play (video gaming),” 2015). In recent years, Let’s Play videos have become increasingly popular especially among younger YouTube users (creators and viewers). Not to mention, thousands of video game players like PewDiePie have reaped financial gains through YouTube’s partner program, rebuffing the archaic notion that “You can’t make money playing video games.” YouTube “Let’s Players,” especially more prominent figures such as PewDiePie are playing an increasingly significant role in modern video game culture. PewDiePie has been 58 known to positively affect the sales of games by merely featuring them in his videos, even if it was a negative assessment (Hernandez, 2014). This is consistent with Shaw’s (2010) assertion that there are many factors which decide the popularity of a game such as social networks, mainstream and video game press coverage, marketing, economics, and so on. Hernandez (2014) has also stated that young teenagers might actually consider PewDiePie and other YouTube personalities more famous than traditional stars such as Hollywood actors/actresses or singers. Furthermore, whereby video games themselves offer players the possibility for escapism and separation from the “real world” (Malaby, 2007), users such 政 治 大
as PewDiePie allow audiences to join their world-­‐within-­‐a-­‐world and “escape” with them. 立
Gaming after all is about “interacting with media, participating, and convergence” (A. Shaw, ‧ 國
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2010, p. 412). Finally, PewDiePie’s popularity gives credence to academics’ and journalists’ assertions that gaming is highly social (A. Shaw, 2010). However, this social aspect does not ‧
stem from users playing video games with PewDiePie, but instead through watching y
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PewDiePie’s videos and interacting with him and other fans on YouTube. Though a large staple of PewDiePie’s YouTube posts continues to be video game al
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commentaries, he has also since branched different genres such as photoshop h eonut ginto chi U
requests, user challenges, and intimate videos where he speaks directly to his fans. Walker (2014) described Kjellberg’s video critique style as “ribald entertainment, an unmediated stream of blurted jokes, startled yelps, goofy voices, politically incorrect comments, and pretty much nonstop profanity,” while a article in the Wall Street Journal writes “He contorts, screeches, swears, sings and even "twerks" to portray his feelings” (Grundberg & Hansegard, 2014). Many of his critics, including haters and trolls who leave negative comments about him, tend to mention his juvenile, frenetic, and over-­‐the-­‐top language and 59 behavior. Wallenstein’s (2013) pessimistically assessed PewDiePie’s immense popularity as an omen that humanity is doomed. But PewDiePie’s “strong character and unique character,” as Kevin Lin, chief operating officer of Twitch TV (an online community for video gamers with live streams of game competitions) said, is also what makes him so popular in the first place (Grundberg & Hansegard, 2014). His humor has been said to be most appropriate for teenage boys and this is completely fine because young teenage boys do make up a majority of his viewership and fanbase (Grundberg & Hansegard, 2014; Gutelle, 2013). 政 治 大
In fact, many of PewDiePie’s haters and trolls are also in great contention with his 立
overly zealous and extremely loyal legion of followers, known as “The Bro Army.” Many ‧ 國
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users who mention even the slightest negative thing about PewDiePie, or post videos critical of the YouTube icon, will most certainly receive a torrent of backlash from his fans. In one of ‧
PewDiePie’s videos, a user wrote “Dude, you [PewDiePie] talk way to much” to which many y
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users heatedly replied, “Dude , fuck off” or “then ur in the wrong channel.” Another commenter wrote “How does this have 4.3 millions views? How do people watch this al
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fucking garbage?” and received replies hsuch as “Cuz they e n g c h i Ubetter watch that then ur face!” or “Dont Judge Man. We all have our own opinion and my opinion is your just jealous.” Many others have expressed more disgust with the Bro Army than with PewDiePie himself. Nonetheless, similar to other successful stars on the platform, PewDiePie’s monumental following is what makes it so easy for trolls to offend. This leads to the claim that PewDiePie’s videos are prime fodder for lulz-­‐harvesting trolls and there are several reasons for this. Because trolls thrive on provoking others, it is logical to conclude that they will target YouTube videos with larger audiences and more view counts, increasing the rate that their provocative lures will attract prey. Burgess and Green (2009) reason: 60 The apparently anti-­‐social communicative practices of trolls and haters have already been normalized in the cultural system of YouTube, at least for the most popular videos – in fact, we might say the comments section of any highly popular video’s page is a playspace for the audience as much as it is a means of the uploader getting feedback. (p. 96) In addition, trolls are attracted to users or entire communities that are particularly passionate or emotionally invested in the topic, with which they are trying to troll. After all, there is not much lulz to be gained from users who are not easily offended. Finally, trolls 政 治 大
may be especially attracted to subjects or YouTube stars who they believe are not worthy of 立
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attention, as Sierra (2014) hypothesized with her “Koolaid Points” theory. Therefore, YouTube trolls may be attracted to 1) YouTube users with a large ‧
numbers of subscribers and video view counts, 2) passionate community members, 3) topics Nat
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or YouTubers who trolls believe are not worthy of attention. PewDiePie meets all of these n
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conditions – He has an enormous 35 million user fanbase, many of whom could be classified i
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as overzealous members of the spiritual “Bro Army.” Additionally, many of his haters and Ch
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trolls commonly question his fame and/or his abilities and express disgust in the millions of fans who have “drunken the kool-­‐aid,” so to say. PewDiePie has had his share of encounters with trolls. In October 2012, YouTube user retsupurae posted a video “Adults React To PewDiePie,” which featured a montage of individuals reacting negatively to his videos, to which PewDiePie personally responded in the comments section: 61 Pretty funny I'll admit! :) But seriously though, have you never heard: If you don't like it, then don't watch it"? Actually never mind, keep watching! Your extra views gets me extra cash! lolololol PewDiePie’s comment drew heavy criticism from the public and further strengthened the trolls’ cause. PewDiePie later responded by posting an apologetic video on YouTube titled “I’m Sorry,” where he says he was mistaken to have commented on the video and felt it had been an effort to troll him: “I shouldn’t have answered to that kind of stuff in the first place, because I keep on asking you bros to ignore trolls so of course, I should do it as well.” 立
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He also clarified that his comment, albeit a childish attempt, was at most meant to be sarcastic and that he never intended to give his viewers the impression that he doesn’t ‧
care about anything other than money. The comment, he says, was directed primarily Nat
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towards trolls: “The thing is, it’s not even meant for people who don't like me. It was meant n
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for people who go out of their way to show somehow that they don't like me. Like, that’s i
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just, I can’t understand that logic. Like, it seems so pointless to me.” It can be said that these Ch
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people are none other than trolls. PewDiePie’s “I’m Sorry” video drew further criticism because he generalized all haters as trolls and assumed their criticisms were all rooted in jealousy. It is also important to note that PewDiePie addressed another one of his criticisms in his video, which is his propensity to make rape jokes. He said he never intended to offend anyone and would no longer make any rape references in his videos. In March 2014, PewDiePie attempted to address his haters and trolls head on through his video “READING MEAN COMMENTS.” In the video, he highlights some of the nastiest comments he has received from his haters and counters each one with a clever 62 response. An example is when John M., commented, “Pewdiepie is so stupid hes talentless and steals other ppls viewers watch yogscast for some REAL insted of this douche” and PewDiePie’s retort includes pretending to speak to an off-­‐camera character, “Hi Yogscast, I got a John M. here. Can you please take him? I don't want him. (looking back at the camera and making a sad face) He’s mean.” Furthermore, PewDiePie brushes off the mean comments directed at him and thanks his fans for their continued support, “I have been telling you bros to not reply to these comments and I think you bros have really listened. I really appreciate that. That actually means a lot to me.” 政 治 大
A year earlier, YouTube had attempted to fix its notorious commenting system. In 立
November 2013, YouTube users were forced to integrate their accounts with Google+, ‧ 國
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Google’s own version of Facebook, and required registering under a real name (Kelly, 2013). The decision was an attempt to curb trolls and other users who leave inane comments ‧
under the cloak of anonymity, but some have speculated it was also a ploy into forcing users y
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to adopt Google’s social network (Hern, 2013). The forced integration was met with great backlash and actually led to an increase in spam, trolling and obscene comments in the form al
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of ASCII art pornography (Doctorow, 2h
013). Thousands f users petitioned online against e n g c h i oU
the new policy, including one of YouTube’s original founders Jawed Karim (Hern, 2013). Eventually in April 2014, after ongoing pressure from its users and massive internal changes, Google reversed its decision and removed the need for YouTube users to connect via their G+ accounts (Amadeo, 2014). One year after the Google+ integration debacle and a few months after posting his “READING MEAN COMMENTS” video, on September 3, 2014, PewDiePie could no longer simply joke about the increasingly grotesque state that his comments section had devolved 63 into and so he decided the best decision was to do away with it completely. Announcing his decision in a rather sober video, PewDiePie said: Comments are my main way to communicate with you bros. But I go to the comments and it’s mainly spam, it’s people self-­‐advertising, it’s people trying to provoke. I don’t care about that, I want to see what you bros say, but it gets blocked out. I was hoping YouTube would figure something out, but I’m sick of it. I’m going to turn comments off forever (Stuart, 2014). 政 治 大
Ohlhesier (2014) of the Washington Post took this statement to mean that trolls were 立
responsible for the PewDiePie’s decision. PewDiePie redirected his fans to comment in what ‧ 國
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he considered were better avenues for community feedback and discussion such as Reddit ‧
and his own website. sit
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A little more than a month later on October 13, 2014, PewDiePie surprisingly io
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the presence of trolls has been almost completely annihilated, but there is still something lost in the process when comment after comment only contains gushing praise for the YouTube star. Currently the comments section is strictly an endless praise-­‐fest for PewDiePie with users spouting, “finally home from school. this is the type of stuff I look forward to. (:” or “You always leave a smile on my face” and “You're pretty cool, Poods. Thanks for your hard work and efforts to make us all enjoy our days just that much more. Brofist!” The last comment is a reference to PewDiePie’s signature end-­‐of-­‐videos “brofist” in which he raises his to make a slow-­‐mo punch to the screen. Nonetheless, PewDiePie has 64 also noted that disabling (or more like moderating) his comments has made him much happier (Kuchera, 2014). The comments section on his newer videos remain under this moderation system, where mostly positive or neutral comments are allowed and the occasional reply from PewDiePie himself, though most of these are very short phrases or sentences. However, videos dated before September 3, 2014, when he decided to remove comments, still retain their unmoderated status. The exception are some of his most popular videos, such as the “Funny Montage” series, which he has recently disabled the comments. However, because 政 治 大
his older videos still receive many views, many trolls still drop by to obtain lulz from time to 立
time. The samples for this thesis will be gathered from PewDiePie’s older, yet most popular ‧ 國
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videos which contain an unmoderated comments section. Furthermore, although a large majority of comments are written in English, given that PewDiePie’s videos are all presented ‧
in this language, there are a handful of comments which are also written in other languages y
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but only English comments will be analyzed for the purposes of this study. Ch
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Chapter 3 -­‐ Methodology For my research on trolls, I have utilized a content analysis approach in my observations of trolls on the YouTube platform, specifically in the comments section. In my original proposal, I had also sought to conduct interviews with the trolls I identified in order to find out more about their identities and motivations. Unfortunately, I was unable to enlist any voluntary participants for interviews, thus relegating my study strictly to a content analysis of trollish comments on YouTube. There are some drawbacks to analyzing online texts via content analysis, as Denzin 政 治 大
and Lincoln (2011) note, because online communication is based purely on the written word 立
or select images which are absent of the nuances of gesture, facial expression and tone of ‧ 國
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voice, there is somewhat of a disadvantage when “reading behavior” or trying to determine ‧
things such as trolls’ motivations and/or intents. Online text can also have many different sit
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meanings embedded within -­‐ “Online conversations may have deeply nuanced subtexts that io
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depart markedly from the superficial meaning of the types words” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, n
p. 473). In her study of trolls, Hardaker (2010) acknowledged there are limitations when Ch
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conducting observations because researchers will never know about the true intents of trolls but can still analyze the data to the best of their abilities: “In ordinary interaction, we do not have the luxury of categorically knowing anything about [the Speaker’s] real intent. Instead, we are continually working from assumption, deduction, and premise, though we may at times have such confidence in our interpretations to feel that they are fully accurate.” (p.11). 66 Regarding specifications for samples, I searched for all videos under PewDiePie’s channel, sorted by popularity. Many of these videos have acquired more than 10 million views (https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie/videos?flow=grid&view=0&sort=p). In addition to moderating videos at the beginning the end of 2014, PewDiePie also began to disable the comments section on some of his most viewed videos such as his “Funny Montage” series which gained an upwards of 60 million views. Nonetheless, I selected the most popular videos, which retained unmoderated status and which the comments section had not yet been disabled, and working my way downwards from there. 政 治 大
The number of comments on such popular highly-­‐viewed YouTube videos is quite 立
sizable. Considering just the most popular video with an unmoderated comment section ‧ 國
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alone amassed a whopping 160,255 total comments. For every YouTube video, any registered YouTube/Google user may leave comments and other users may reply to the ‧
original commenter (OC), initiating a conversation chain. Further down the chain, yet other y
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users may reply to the original commenter or other users who have commented in the chain by adding “+” and the name of the user the comment is directed towards (e.g. +noodlecake). al
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YouTube comment chains may span hundreds h e n gof ccomments h i U long with many of users interacting with each other. Users may direct their comments to one or more users or they may simply post a comment not directed at any single person. Without the help of software, I needed to manually search for trollish comments and behaviors based on certain characteristics of trolls mentioned throughout this study. In order to determine set indicators used in the identification of trolls, I looked to trolls primarily within mediums which contained commenting systems, such as online boards, forums, and news sites. Trollish behavior from such studies included baiting users to react through posting provocative comments (Binns, 2012; Herring et al., 2002; Turner, 2010). 67 YouTube users incited PewDiePie’s fan community by posting insults towards PewDiePie and his fans such as “PewDiePie sucks,” or “PewDiePie’s fans are all 8-­‐year-­‐olds.” There were many of these negative and hateful comments but I excluded comments which attracted little to no respondents. Instead, I selected comments which contained an ongoing conversation chain of at least 50 or more responses for two reasons: 1) I could weed out “haters” who posts negative messages but do not respond to anyone who has replied to their original comment and 2) to identify successful trolls who are committed to and have succeeded in engaging their victims for longer durations. In these comparatively 政 治 大
lengthy conversations, the suspected troll must continue to interact with his so-­‐called 立
victims, extending the spiral of disruption and pursuit of lulz. ‧ 國
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Other red flags, which indicated the presence of a troll, included hostile behaviors such as ‘flaming’ and ‘hating,’ as described in chapter 2.7; this may include insults, negative ‧
and/or vulgar language, and strings of capitalized text. y
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Furthermore, I was the only coder working on all analysis for this study so there was no need for inter-­‐reliability tests and all results are consistent in that they were analyzed by al
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one person. There are, however, issues U single-­‐researcher analysis as hthat e nmgay carise h i from explained further in the limitations section. 3.1 Hardaker’s Model of Trolls I have chosen to analyze the interactions of YouTube trolls with other users according to Hardaker’s (2010) characteristics of trolls in asynchronous computer-­‐mediated-­‐
communication (CMC). Hardaker’s study originally sought to redress the lack of a proper academic framework to describe the phenomenon of trolling. As a corpus which analyzed data from several year’s worth of unmoderated Usenet newsgroup posts, Hardaker’s study 68 looked primarily at how trolls were being described by community members, sometimes including the trolls themselves, and ultimately identified four recurrent themes regarding trolls/trolling: deception, aggression, disruption, and success. Given Hardaker’s classification of Usenet’s user interaction system as asynchronous CMC, it is reasonable to infer that her findings are also applicable to other online forms of asynchronous CMC such as YouTube’s commenting system. YouTube users interact through computer-­‐mediated commenting areas provided under each YouTube video and asynchronously by posting messages to one another whenever they are online rather than 政 治 大
in real-­‐time. Therefore, responses may be posted within hours and days to months or even 立
years in between. ‧ 國
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Looking more in-­‐depth at Hardaker’s characteristics of trolls, ‘deception’ refers to users who attempt to pass themselves off as sincere community members instead of overtly ‧
identifying themselves as a malicious troll. ‘Aggression’ is described by Hardaker as y
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“aggressive, malicious behaviour undertaken with the aim of annoying or goading others into retaliating,” while ‘disruption’ includes causing aggravation without necessarily al
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attacking specific individuals. Finally, ‘success’ trolls being appraised by users h e n gentails chi U
regarding a troll’s quality and how others respond to the troll. I posit that ‘success’ is tied to the notion of lulz, which remains the primary motivator for trolls and the entire basis for troll culture. I hypothesize that trolls themselves may also speak about success or defeat in their communication with others. I intend to test Hardaker’s model of trollish characteristics, aiming to seek if and how these four characteristics manifest themselves in the interactions of YouTube trolls and other users. Acknowledging that Hardaker’s model was created from ground level research, and may not be fully compatible with study on YouTube trolls as she analyzed UseNet trolls, 69 I will also attempt to account for any differences and identify any additional characteristics prevalent within YouTube trolls that were not mentioned in Hardaker’s study. For example, Sierra’s (2014) notion of “Kool-­‐Aid Points” for trolls who attack others because they feel their attention and status is unwarranted, might be a motivator for trolls to target PewDiePie’s page. Thus, I propose the following research questions: RQ1. Do YouTube trolls exhibit the characteristics of 'deception,' 'aggression,' 'disruption' and 'success'? 政 治 大
RQ2. Are there any other characteristics that YouTube trolls exhibit? 立
RQ3. If so, how do trolls exhibit these characteristics? ‧ 國
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There are a few points of contention that require clarification regarding the use of ‧
Hardaker’s model. Hardaker’s formulation of trollish characteristics is based on analysis of y
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the Usenet community. Although her model of “trolls in asynchronous CMC” may be a reasonable starting point for analyzing YouTube trolls, there are bound to be certain al
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idiosyncratic differences between YouTube and Usenet trolls. Thus it is reasonable to h e ntrolls gchi U
expect areas in which this study’s findings diverge and/or contribute to Hardaker’s model. Additionally, Hardaker evaluated descriptions of trolls within the Usenet community in order to construct a model of trollish attributes, whereas I aim to utilize her model to directly analyze trolls and their comments. While it is true that I may not be able to completely isolate trollish comments from other users’ comments, this study places higher emphasis on directly examining characteristics of trolls as exhibited by the trolls themselves, more so than indirectly examining descriptions of trolls by other community members. 70 Additionally, there might be a few hidden themes regarding the nature of trolls, as mentioned in previous sections. Existing literature has theorized that many trolls are indeed white young males who many times seek to direct their trollish behaviors towards women, minority groups, and homosexuals (A. Chen, 2014; Herring et al., 2002; Milner, 2013; Phillips, 2011, 2013). Ironically, “maleness and whiteness” have also traditionally been used to describe gamer identity (A. Shaw, 2010) which belongs to the very culture which PewDiePie espouses through his videos. I will attempt to confirm or disconfirm if such themes do rise up during my analysis of YouTube trolls: 政 治 大
RQ4. What are the social implications of YouTube trolls? 立
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Chapter 4 -­‐ Characteristics of YouTube Trolls: The Case of PewDiePie An examination of PewDiePie’s most popular videos, searched during March-­‐May 2015, led to the identification of 23 trolls. These trolls appeared throughout 15 different videos, with post dates ranging from April 2012 to August 2014, and some videos contained more than one identified troll. Most of the videos in the selection had accumulated more than 10 million views, demonstrating their sheer popularity across YouTube, the gaming community and the overall online community. Only three of these trolls appeared to have used their real names, of which two displayed what appeared to be real profile pictures of 政 治 大
themselves. This could not be fully verified, however, as there is still the possibility that 立
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lends to the notion that most trolls operate under the guise of anonymity. In contrast, users ‧
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As expected, Hardaker’s (2010) four characteristics of trolls: ‘deception,’ ‘aggression,’ ‘disruption’ and ‘success’ were indeed prevalent in my analysis of YouTube trolls, while ‘aggression’ was the only trait present in all instances. Furthermore, “resentment” emerged as a fifth prominent trait demonstrated through the many trolls who openly expressed their distaste for PewDiePie and/or his fans. Each of these characteristics and their existence within the context of YouTube are explained more in detail below. As a note, these five traits often coincide with one another as many comments may contain more than one trait at a time. In addition, these characteristics may at times be interchangeably be referred to 72 as ‘tactics,’ especially in instances where they are seen to be employed by trolls in order to maximize their effectiveness and success. In addition, for purposes of this study all usernames are in their original format and have not been altered. Despite ongoing debates regarding the privacy rights of online users for academic study (Johnson, 1997; H. J. Smith, Dinev, & Xu, 2011), users are assumed to have reasonable privacy on YouTube where no personal information is posted and there are specific nuances revealed in the usernames, for trolls and other users, which are meaningful for analytical purposes. For these reasons, I have chosen to retain the original formats of all 政 治 大
YouTube usernames mentioned in the study. 立
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Table 1. Characteristics of YouTube Trolls 立
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Table 1 74 4.1 Aggression As seen, in table 1, all 23 (100%) YouTube trolls identified in this study exhibited ‘aggression’ in their interactions with other users. By definition, the most successful trolls on YouTube are able to attract the most “negative” attention and goad many other users into retaliating -­‐ aggression has proven to be one of the most effective techniques in achieving this task. Aggression, often takes the form of several recurrent and predictable forms including insulting and threatening PewDiePie or his fans: Example (1) 立
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(FURRY HYENA) Pewdiepie sucks and his content is garbage! (Shark zibr) Oh yeah also hope pewdiepie dies and all his “bros” Example (3) Nat
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(Super Nova) How retarded are these kids? Oh wait, they're Pewdiepie fans, I forgot haha. Ch
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Table 2. Patterns of Aggression in YouTube Trolls 立
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As indicated in table 2, aggression can be further parsed into several common forms as utilized by trolls. The most common form of aggression included attacks on users’ intelligence, which occurred in every single trolls’ interactions, except one -­‐ Shark zibr. These attacks are usually paired with remarks that refer to the persisting notion that PewDiePie’s fan base is comprised primarily of young and juvenile children: Example (4) (gazzak98) kids like his immaturity because kids are fucking stupid. Example (5) 立
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(EGPrime) Oh, whatever was I thinking? I SHALL CHANGE MY WAYS -­‐ HAIL PEWDS, KING OF ‧ 國
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THE TODDLERS ON THE INTERNET. ‧
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(Jake Jeffery) 95% of his fan base are 12 year olds, that's because only 12 year olds are sad i
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Similar to example (6), many trolls will associate a specific age or age range to PewDiePie’s fans. Attacks on intelligence may not necessarily be connected to PewDiePie fandom as seen in the examples above. Instead, trolls may also base their attacks on their beliefs of a user’s weak arguments or poor grammar (another common theme), or they may simply wish to further antagonize users: Example (7) 77 (SquieWeeBros) that show how stupid you are, retard. you wouldent know comedy if i[t] bit you on the ass. Example (8) (BBL Podcast) Oh so you're a immature 12 year old? because i can tell from horrible comebacks and poor grammar. Example (9) (JokingAreYou) I’ve been over this. Come back when you have a good argument down you down syndrome incest baby. Example (10) 立
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their victims: Example (11) (Erim Aydinalp): You probably have an iq of 40 because you can’t even form proper sentences. Example (12) (Super Nova) Can you people type in proper English? It's hard for me to understand retarded language. 78 Example (13) (Lyric): Last time I checked there aren't multiple clones of me on here. The term is singular not plural. Noob not noobz. Example (14) (EpicNEd): You're getting better, now you need to capitalize the beginning of your sentences. “Grammar nazi” tendencies are common not only throughout YouTube, but across the 政 治 大
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Example (15) (Jake Jeffery): Drink the contents of my ball sack. Example (16) (Jeenius Foo): No, i need you to hold my cock and suck it, in the parking lot. Trolls also commonly reference others’ family members in their crudely crafted comments, attempting to exploit an individual’s emotions where most sensitive. These comments are 79 arguably one of the highest forms of aggression as they aim to provoke others based on their high shock value and overall offensiveness: Example (17) (gazzak98) yeah because I fucked your two sisters Example (18) (SquieWeeBros) go back to your jungle monkey boy and suck your fathers dick :))))))))) Example (19) 政 治 大
(Babywannabe) fuck you bitch i bang your mom i said FUCK RIGHT IN THE PUSSY!!! AND SHE 立
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In example (19), Babywannabe was markedly aggressive towards his victims and continued ‧
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implications of trolls. Apart from these htactics, other forms e n g c h i U of aggression were much less pronounced across trollish behaviors. As indicated in table 2, all trolls had at one point directed their aggression towards fans in the comments section, while only about half (57%) had ever posted aggressive remarks towards PewDiePie. Perhaps this is because trolls were more likely to harbor negative views towards PewDiePie’s fans or maybe they were more concerned with trolling other online users, and PewDiePie’s videos merely provided a bonanza of “lulz” victims. It is undeterminable, but likely, that these very same trolls might have been active on other YouTube videos and PewDiePie was just an external factor for them. As a final point, while 80 most trolls were fairly direct with their aggression, jelena jankovic (20)(21) was the only troll to have exclusively exhibited passive-­‐aggressive tendencies: Example (20) (Mohammad “TheMtarGaMer” Matari): because your a dumbass and being owned on the internent. hey let me join. #momgetthecamrea (jelena jankovic): #momthisguymispelledcamera Example (21) 政 治 大
(Razerware146): omfg hahaha Facepalm It's not a stereotype if it's true hahaha. 立
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It is also worth mentioning that jelena jankovic “appeared” to have used her real name and ‧
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4.2 Deception In previous studies, a large factor in trollish behavior includes deception. In this study, deception only proved to be present in about 10 (43%) of the observed trolls. As per Donath’s (1999) definition, deception refers to trolls who try to establish themselves as a legitimate part of the community while in truth, they are seeking to deceptively disrupt the group undercover. This is also true for several YouTube trolls, to an extent. Hardaker (2010) noted in her study that rarely will trolls go on-­‐record to reveal their trollish intents 81 beforehand which also true for several YouTube trolls who stalwartly denied their troll identity when accused: Example (22) (Babywannabe) stfu am not a troll and get the fuck out of here little boy! Example (23) (Orange Tortoise) IM NOT TROLLING FUCK U Example (24) (Σκεπτόμενη) stop trolling bitch! 立
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In examples (22) and (23), other users’ accusations of trolling leads to denial and further hostility by the trolls, while example (24)’s Σκεπτόμενη even goes so far as to counter-­‐
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Example (25) (Rachel Lambert) Lol. Troll much? (Lyric) Troll a word that is used by uneducated unsophisticated people. Guess that explains you. Example (26) (BBL Podcast) A troll is someone who just says something to piss someone off, i can't be a troll because it's my honest opinion. if i was a troll i would only be saying shit like "PewDiePie sucks hahahahahahahaahahahah" 82 Lyric (25) deflects accusations of being a troll back to his original accuser while BBL Podcast (26) says he is not purposely antagonizing other users, but his original comment, “Calm Down, It's just PewDiePie. Nobody important,” appears to indicate otherwise. The most common form of deceptive trolling amongst the PewDiePie community was based on flawed rhetoric regarding PewDiePie’s subscriber count. In one of PewDiePie’s videos, “Mean Comments,” dated May 2014, he ridiculed a comment posted on one of his videos -­‐ “how can pewdiepie have 26 million subscribers while there are only 7-­‐8 million 政 治 大
people on the earth?? Fake accunts..?” While it is unclear if this video launched or merely 立
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comments have since run rampant throughout PewDiePie’s videos, including four of the trolls identified in this study: er
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Example (27) ‧
(Σκεπτόμενη) HOW is it possible for this video to have 13 million views when there are only n
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Example (28) (MLG POTATO) how dufuq is there 20 million views theres 7 mil people on the planet omg hacks Example (29) (EpicNEd) If there's only 7000 people in the world, why is does he have 32 million subscribers? Fake acunts. Example (30) 83 (jelena jankovic) How PewDiePie has 32 billion subscribers when there is only 7 billion people in this world? (__) waits for 12-­‐year old kids Though the troll’s intentions were obvious to many community members, there was also a large swath of users who believed that these trolls were genuinely misinformed and thus took it upon themselves to rectify the inaccuracy (this method of trolling is also heavily characteristic of ‘disruption’ as explained in the next section). Thus, these trolls were all successful in attracting large swaths of attention from the fan community. Σκεπτόμενη, MLG 政 治 大
POTATO and EpicNEd in examples (27), (28) and (29) continued to feign ignorance and 立
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original comment. Only jelena jankovic in example (30), who made her trollish intentions clear from the beginning by writing “waits for 12-­‐year old kids,” did not attempt to prolong ‧
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true identity and intentions of a troll. Therefore, trolls were either not able to successfully deceive others of their identity or they never had any intentions of truly deceiving community members into believing they were legitimate members of the PewDiePie fan community. Deception may be a less pronounced characteristic in the context of YouTube because it is simply not required for “trolling,” whereas in more traditional forms of asynchronous CMC such as UseNet forums, open hostility could lead to swift banishment from the community, never to be seen again. While there are methods for flagging spam and offensive comments on YouTube, given the massive scale of the entire site and the fact 84 that the comment sections are mostly left unmoderated by any one person, it is not as easy to control the sheer number of trolls who easily obtain lulz through overt aggression. Deception is, however, most commonly attributed to disruptive troll practices explained further in detail below. 4.3 Disruption Disruption is distinguishable from aggression because it involves causing aggravation without necessarily attacking one person or a group of people (Hardaker, 2010). Disruption, 政 治 大
present in 11 (48%) of the observed trolls, is also known for its unproductive nature as trolls 立
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description is accurate of the trolls mentioned above who made deceptive comments ‧
regarding their ignorance of the earth’s population in relation to the number of PewDiePie’s subscribers. Trolls in these instances will stubbornly maintain the guise of obliviousness in y
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(Aerophone) Dude is 7 billion not Million!! (MLG POTATO) ur an idiott its 7thousand hundred my brother toldd me tis so shut down iddiiotttttt Example (32) (+Johny Michelson) There are 7 billion people on Earth. (Σκεπτόμενη) you mean million.. Example (33) 85 (TheGaming Zebra) FOR THE LAST TIME THERE ARE 6 BILLION PEOPLE ON EARTH THERE ARE MORE THAN 7,000 PEOPLE IN AMERICA SO DONT EVEN ASK ANY MORE (EpicNEd) lol, there are only 300 people in America! Silly goose. MLG POTATO, Σκεπτόμενη and EpicNEd all persistently resumed this repetitive and senseless exchange with users who had responded to correct them throughout the entire duration of their 100+ comment chains. These trolls often pursued a motif to extreme ends and crafted silly and mindless comments in order to maximize the amount of “lulz”: 立
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(EpicNEd) End of discussion. There are only 7001 according to scientologists. We should all love each other. We only have eachother, sniff :( ‧
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(EpicNEd) Whoever iz saying there isn't 7001 people is a Hitler sjpporter. al
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i ve already said above, Jesus Christ told me the truth about it ;) On the topic of absurd disruption tactics, several trolls also concocted preposterous stories such as FURRY HYENA of example (37) while jelena jankovic’s (38) comment is reminiscent of typical troll-­‐styled writing: Example (37) 86 (FURRY HYENA) Correction, I’m 17 and I’m not really a human I’m actually a hyena and I managed to figure how to type and use a computer. Example (38) (jelena jankovic) Ah, thank you, you're wasting my troll space.... snort yeah really... snort ahahahaha snort derp... snort oh idk snort... cough You didn't even change it cough cough cough Other trolls were more logical in their arguments but ultimately, their disruptive comments 政 治 大
were still considered a form of trolling. For instance BBL Podcast (39), below, played the 立
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advocate role in example (40) in order to prove his point (in reference of PewDiePie’s historical affinity for rape jokes as was explained in chapter 2): er
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clearly not the case. Because pewdiepie U he is better? Hitler had way h meakes h mi oney n gmcore more money then you so I guess Hitler is cool, enjoy your own logic. Example (40) (Orange Tortoise) RAPE IS HILARIOUS WOT IS SO BAD ABOUT RAPE IF PEWDS SAY IT THEN ITS FUNNY RAPE NOT OFFENSIVE JUST HILAR Hardaker (2010) acknowledged that the line between disruption and aggression is “quite frequently blurred” (p. 233). This is apparent through several YouTube trolls who were characteristic of semi-­‐aggressive disruption tactics, including Jeenius Foo. Jeenius Foo‘s 87 original comment, “That bitche's voice, omg i would shoot myself on the 1st date,” referred to PewDiePie’s girlfriend, Marzia, who makes occasional appearances in PewDiePie’s videos. As expected, Marzia, by association with her intimate ties to PewDiePie, is beloved and admired by the community. Jeenius Foo accumulated a massive amount of negative replies to his original comment, many of which he replied with consistently styled structures: Example (41) (Jess Park) you you are the *** for calling her that you haven't met her you don't know her 政 治 大
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(Kungfublueray) Yes. Grow up. And if not then either stop listening to this voice, or shoot your self. Lol (Jeenius Foo) Don't worry, listened once, never again. Example (44) (Max Ambush) You wouldn't even get a first date because you're an ignorant cunt ;) (Jeenius Foo) You're right, after the 1st sound that came out of her mouth, I would have never asked her out on a date. 88 Jeenius Foo appeared to be unfazed by much of the backlash generated his comments but frequently managed to craft witty retorts to deflect detractors. Several trolls engaged in more extreme forms of disruptive/aggressive trolling, notably Erim Aydinalp, who attracted a throng of enraged users after posting the comment “pewdiepie is a child rapist.” Similar to Jeenius Foo, Erim Aydinalp continued to build upon his initial claim in each subsequent response, quickly developing a predictable theme: Example (45) 政 治 大
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(Erim Aydinalp) I think its a serious matter and pewdipie should be in jail because of all the child rape he has done ‧
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(Erim Aydinalp) Damn too many little kids who got raped by pewdiepie are crying around Example (47) Ch
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(Erim Aydinalp) He is using a really effective method to hypnotize you kids thats why you all are crying over here but he will rape all of you one by one Example (48) (Erim Aydinalp) Wow pewdiepie must have raped you really hard you are suffering from brain damage. Erim Aydinalp achieved disruption through repetitive retorts towards his responders. This included offering outlandish explanations to back up his claims or insulting others in 89 ways that further reinforced his original statements. It would appear that any attempt to criticize or reprimand Erim Aydinalp were fruitless and only worked against users as they were doing nothing more than feeding an unstoppable troll. Therefore, in terms of the level of community disruption, Erim Aydinalp’s tactics proved to be very successful. In another instance, one user, Samuel Oh posted the comment: Hi I'm 13 years old and today my dad is in the hospital because he had a heart problem and is getting a heart surgery. I'm not sure what kind of heart surgery he is having but will he be able to live? Will he have a high chance of a successful rate? 政 治 大
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ultimately established himself as the most conspicuous and detestable troll of the thread: engchi
Example (49) (The Plague Doctor) Piss off. Go see him in hospital if you're sincere. You're old enough to know your surroundings, so go talk to him instead of watching pewdiepie and asking random people on the Internet if they think your dad will be alright. Example (50) (The Plague Doctor) He's dead. (The Plague Doctor) I killed him 90 (The Plague Doctor) Real slow. Example (51) (The Plague Doctor) I hope he dies btw. (The Plague Doctor) Okay that was mean. I'm sorry. (The Plague Doctor) I'm kidding. I really hope he dies Example (52) (Gamerworld The Lonely BLU Medic) Is your dad OK yet? (The Plague Doctor) No. He died. 立
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As seen from these examples, many trolls engage in disruptive practices that lure other users into meaningless and unproductive conversation. Again, the boundaries between disruption and aggression are not so clearly defined as observed in the examples of Jeenius Foo, Erim Aydinalp and The Plague Doctor. Regarding disruption, a commonality amongst many trolls is they establish a theme and then maintain the theme as the chain of comments grow longer and longer. For example, MLG POTATO, Σκεπτόμενη and EpicNEd all insisted that earth’s population was much less than what others claimed, while Jeenius Foo repeatedly proclaimed his dislike of Marzia’s voice, and Erim Aydinalp also persisted in his 91 claims that PewDiePie was a child rapist. It seems that trolls must remain consistent since they rarely admit they are wrong, no matter how ludicrous their “claims.” Their dogged persistence both fuels and maintains the flow of disruption, dragging the community deeper into meaningless conversation, and thus proving once again that you can never “win” against a troll. 4.4 Success Occurring a little more frequently than ‘deception’ and’ disruption,’ ‘success’ 政 治 大
manifested in 15 (65%) of the trolls observed in this study. Unlike Hardaker (2010) who 立
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troll, this study focused attention on the trolls’ comments as to whether success was a io
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Example (54) (Lyric) It's so easy getting a reaction from you. Example (55) (PinkiePie) But you’re the one who replied, check mate! Example (56) (Prohblem :33) okay no one cares about ur dumb shiiit (Jeenius Foo) Obviously you do otherwise you would have kept scrolling and not leave a comment... Thank you. :) 92 In example (53), Babywannabe describes success as being able to silence everyone in the community (though this might have been an attempt further generate responses) and examples (54), (55) and (56) describe a troll’s success through their ability to incite replies from others. It’s easy to see why trolls who expressly imply that they are succeeding or winning can provoke further ire from their victims. Furthermore, trolls may openly declare their troll identity or trolling intentions in connection with their success: 政 治 大
Example (57) 立
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Example (58) (FURRY HYENA) Your butthurt comments are delicious, than you bros for feeding me er
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(chuckle chuckle) (MLG POTATO) u all got trolled kbye n
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(jelena jankovic) Failing? I managed to troll 200 people, including YOU... In examples (57) and (58), there is reference to the well-­‐known advice for online users not to “feed the troll,” so as to render it unsuccessful. Similar to jelena jankovic in example (60), trolls commonly aimed to quantify their success by tallying the number of comments their original post accumulated: Example (61) 93 (Polans Can Into Space) The idiots finally left. Tallied, 28 spam and 60 comments. Example (62) (EGPrime) You have to admit: I'm a good troll. Most trolls get shot down at the first comment. This one took 90 comments of morons lining up one at a time to get bitch slapped by my superior intelligence. Example (63) (MLG POTATO) Thx 5 400+ cmments pls like r8 subscrib don 4get 2 like me on twatter and fartbook subscribe me pls like and subscribe bye dont 4get to subscrive subscribe and bye Example (64) 立
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(BBL Podcast) Obviously this rant was succesful when you see 150 comments and 76 likes ‧ 國
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As a troll in the truest sense, MLG POTATO in example (63) inflated his actual comment ‧
count from about 500 to 5,400. EGPrime (62) boasted he was a “good troll” because he had y
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solicited so many comments while BBL Podcast (64), in addition to tallying comments, also considered the number of “likes” to his original comment when evaluating his overall al
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success. To a lesser degree, trolls may h
claim to be successful e n g c h i U according to the amount of the attention being “showered” upon them: Example (65) (FURRY HYENA) And you bros are giving me all the attention i want, thanks so much :) Example (66) (MLG POTATO) im popular 94 As explained in chapter 2, troll culture places heavy emphasis on the pursuit of lulz – the pleasure and satisfaction at the expense of others’ anguish and suffering -­‐ as the primary motivation for trollish behaviors. In my analysis of YouTube trolls, the concept of “lulz” played a significant role for trollish behavior and its acquisition was inextricably tied to the success of trolls: Example (67) (FURRY HYENA) I think you need to relax there bro, ever heard of “don’t feed the trolls” 政 治 大
because i was just testing to see how you would overreact but apparently you got butthurt 立
so HA! i win. ‧ 國
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Example (68) (EGPrime) I may now bundle off into the sunset after fulfilling my job of pissing off little ‧
snots like you (the 12, 13 year old fan base), and I may now rest satisfied, knowing I pissed y
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off you, the viewer, so much that you may reply 100 or so times to have another dig at me. al
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(Shark zibr) AAGHHAGHHAGHAGHAGHAGHAGHGHAGHAGHAGHA SOMEONES MAD hengchi U
AHAHHAHAHAHHA Example (70) (Polans Can Into Space) you became aggravated. So, you did my job. Example (71) (Jeenius Foo) You're obviously hysterical. Lol These examples indicate that trolls gain pleasure from eliciting negative emotional responses in their victims – whether it is anger, aggravation or hysteria shown in examples 95 (69), (70) and (71), respectively. Trolls express their laughter through words such as “hahaha” and “lol” while also directly linking their success to the acquisition of lulz, as FURRY HYENA (66) exclaims “i win,” EGPrime (68) says that he “fulfilled his job” and “can rest satisfied” while Polans Can Into Space (70) states, “you did my job.” More examples of trolls who openly expressed their joy and entertainment from getting a rise out of others include: Example (72) 政 治 大
(Lyric) Or you can sit here entertain me some more sense I have no intention to give up. 立
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(JokingAreYou) Aggressive debates are better for laughs. Sorry I’m a sociopathic asshole. (Reicito Escobar) You like hate? Oh my god, You can only hear this in the 21st Century. y
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(EGPrime) Like it? LOVE IT! Nothing like some cunt telling you you suck in the morning. I love i
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The trolls in these examples illustrate how trolls derive their entertainment from the hostile exchanges so conveniently provided by PewDiePie’s fans. JokingAreYou (73) admits of sociopathic tendencies and while EGPrime (74) exclaims that his actions are fueled by hate. These statements are consistent with Binns’ (2012) findings -­‐ trolls contain sociopathic tendencies and are, essentially, modern-­‐day sadists. Finally, the aforementioned The Plague Doctor describes his joy from trolling Samuel Oh: Example (75) 96 (The Plague Doctor) It's funny that he thinks he will get sympathy on the internet. The internet is a horrible place, and its about time he learnt that. In this comment, The Plague Doctor also exhibited the final trait of “resentment” which shall be explained in the following section. As illustrated from these instances, it is surmised that trolls will often times outwardly boast about their success in order to further antagonize community members. It may also serves as a reminder to their victims that they can never “win” against a troll 政 治 大
because whether users retaliate (it doesn’t matter what is said because trolls neither 立
understand logic nor defeat) or remain silent (allowing the troll to gain the last word), they ‧ 國
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will always “lose” against a troll. This gives further credence to the popular counsel of not feeding trolls and ignoring them, so as to disarm them from the get-­‐go. As JokingAreYou y
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(JokingAreYou) Fuck all of you, I get the cuz I’m always right! My IQ is 10x all of hlast e nlaugh gchi U
you. My car is worth more than your lives Pubic hair, pewbs, dick hair, or whatever you call him is a fag. I’m way cooler than any of you! BYEEEE!!!! I win and get the last laugh loololololollolol 4.5 Resentment In Hardaker’s analysis of trolls, she had identified ‘deception,’ ‘aggression,’ ‘disruption,’ and ‘success’ as recurrent characteristics of trolling. Analysis of YouTube trolls also indicated a 97 fifth recurring characteristic -­‐ ‘resentment’ -­‐ mainly towards PewDiePie and/or his fans for various reasons. ‘Resentment’ emerged in a 14 (61%) of the trolls analyzed. While lulz is theorized as the foremost motivation for trollish behaviors, the trolls identified in this study may have targeted PewDiePie’s YouTube videos specifically, rather than other videos, because they also harbored distaste towards the famous YouTuber and his fervent “Bro Army” fan community. As demonstrated in the examples below, resentment may be viewed as a form of the ‘aggression,’ but there is a notable distinction -­‐ resentment is aggression with a reason. 政 治 大
YouTube trolls that exhibit resentment criticize PewDiePie and his fans for certain reasons 立
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their aggression other than the sole purpose of riling up others into reacting. Resentment was seen as a unique characteristic in the case of trolls on PewDiePie’s videos, and thus, was ‧
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popular feminists who are targeted by h
white male trolls e n g c h i bUecause of their discriminatory and supremacist ideologies). According to her theory, trolls may be irritated that fans have “drunk PewDiePie’s kool-­‐aid.” Sierra’s theory has proven true in my analysis -­‐ many trolls did indeed outwardly express their dislike of PewDiePie as an overrated and talentless performer who is undeserving of his large following and immense fortune: Example (77) 98 (JokingAreYou) He has no talent. I can make my three year old cousin laugh by sticking my tongue out. Any toddler will find that funny. But whether I use that comedy on one toddler or 30 million. It’s not talent. Example (78) (Jake Jeffery) his videos aren't hilarious at all their shockingly awful and he does not deserve the sort of money he earns and everyone knows it including himself. Example (79) (gazzak98) he doesn't even work and he is getting more for sitting on his ass then grown 政 治 大
men get for busting their asses off at work. 立
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(BBL Podcast) how can someone who does random shit like this get 26,000,000 subs, very very sad, then you see real talented people on YouTube and very little subs ‧
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makes. Other trolls argue the very existence f “PewDiePie’s character” is unjust because he h e nog
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makes an enormous amount of money just for “sitting on his ass” (79) or, as BBL Podcast argues (80), he has gathered millions of subscribers when there are more talented and deserving YouTubers with only few subscribers. Trolls were not limited in their rationale for resenting PewDiePie: Example (81) (Polans Can Into Space) PewDiePie fucks up on purpose for views. Idiotic shits. Example (82) 99 (Zhanrae30) Any other reason you don't like Pewds? (Polans Can Into Space) Money whore, attention whore, bland content, appeals to ten year old idiots, pulls off publicity stunts to get more popular, and he's a faggot. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Example (83) (EGPrime) I was a subscriber when this channel was small, but whether it was me getting older, or his videos getting worse, I disliked his content, thus un-­‐subscribing. Example (84) (Orange Tortoise) are you trying to say that you think rape is a very serious matter, yet you 政 治 大
watch this little fuck of a man scream RAPE MEEHHH FUCK ME RAPE ME ANALLY!!” On a 立
regular basis and find it funny, despite how serious and upsetting if it? ‧ 國
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Polans Can Into Space (81) attacks PewDiePie’s character, saying that he purposely flubs in ‧
video games in order to elevate view counts, among other reasons in example (82). Example y
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(84)’s Orange Tortoise makes reference to PewDiePie who had previously commonly made rape jokes, see example (40). Trolls were also quick to contend that PewDiePie values al
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money much more than his fans or that not care about his fans at all: hhee dnoesn’t gchi U
Example (85) (gazzak98) The world would be a better place if cunts like him didn't exist he gets overpayed and he knows it. But he hasn't said anything yet. You know why? BECAUSE HE IS DOING IT FOR THE MONEY. HE DOESNT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIS FANS. Example (86) (Super Nova) He doesn't give a shit about anyone of you. Fucking low lives. Example (87) 100 (JokingAreYou) How do I know he does it for the money? It’s his job!! Sure he has helped people coming from that dark depressed zone. But he doesn’t give a flying shit about them again you are all walking dollar signs to him. The trolls go so far as to claim that PewDiePie doesn’t “give a shit” about his fans at all (85)(86)(87), equating them to nothing more than “walking dollar signs” (87). Trolls did not only exclusively express their resentment of PewDiePie, but they had also much to say about his loyal and feverish followers, the infamous “Bro Army”: 政 治 大
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(gazzak98) kids like his immaturity because kids are fucking stupid. If you call this "work" no wonder this generation is fucked ‧
Example (89) y
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(Polans Can Into Space) Secondly, you have all shown how stupid the BRAW ARMEE can be. Finally, you all act like PDP asskissers. Trolls asserted that PewDiePie’s fans were unintelligent by definition and also expressed disgust at their overzealousness. Other trolls such as those in examples (90) and (91) below used more obscene metaphors to explain fans’ blind and misguided devotion to PewDiePie: Example (91) 101 (Babywannabe) fuck the bro army there just giving him money and yoyu guys are sucking his dick Example (92) (Jake Jeffery) Im just saying the pricks irritating u wana suck him off be my guest. Perhaps the most cynical and logically versed troll on the subject was Lyric (92), who provided a his personal derisive description of PewDiePie’s fans: Example (93) 立
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(Lyric) He has you wrapped around his finger. If he told you to give out three thousand likes ‧ 國
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to random videos you would. He knows that if you met him in person he could easily make you fall head over heels for him. Oh well maybe when the gears in your brain start turning ‧
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refer to you as ''slave''. Since that is really what you are. y
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Finally, The Plague Doctor, mentioned h
in earlier sections, e n g c h i Ualso exhibited resentment, but different from the other trolls who resented PewDiePie and/or his fans. The Plague Doctor originally harassed Samuel Oh whom he believed was a troll seeking attention, but later shifted his stance after realizing that Samuel Oh could have in fact been telling the truth about his father’s dire medical condition. Therefore, The Plague Doctor later tries to justify his harsh attitude towards Samuel Oh, claiming it was to teach him a lesson in online culture: Example (94) 102 (The Plague Doctor) I thought it was pretty funny that he thought he could find solace on the internet. It's the internet for fucks sake. Nobody's nice here. If you don't like it, piss off. I hope he learnt a valuable lesson here. Don't post private family stuff on the web. In this way, The Plague Doctor perhaps resented Samuel Oh’s naivety, and thus sought to use harsh measures under the virtuous guise of teaching him a “valuable lesson.” ‘Resentment’ appears as a recurrent characteristic on PewDiePie’s YouTube videos whereas it was not identified in Hardaker’s (2010) original study. An explanation for the disparity is 政 治 大
that this study focuses on trolls in a much more specific context in comparison to Hardaker’s 立
broader corpus of Usenet trolls. There are several other unique and significant factors about ‧ 國
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this study: 1) PewDiePie is the main focus in the comments areas which form this study’s analysis. Additionally, 2) PewDiePie is a popular figure and 3) his videos bring together a ‧
massive assembly of passionate and like-­‐minded fans. These combined factors, within y
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YouTube’s framework, attract throngs of trolls who are not only interested in trolling for gaining “lulz,” but they may also harbor resentment towards PewDiePie and his fans, for the n
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Chapter 5: The Social Implications of YouTube Trolls Previous scholars on troll research have alluded to troll populations consisting heavily of young white males who are also likely to target woman, minority groups, and homosexuals. While my research was unable to reveal any information about the demographics of trolls, I was able to identify various troll targets based on their comments. The data shows that hostility directed at women, minority groups and homosexuals by YouTube trolls was present but not statistically significant. As Chart 2 indicates, only about 25% of the trolls were characteristically sexist or homophobic while a larger amount (36%) 政 治 大
alluded to “racism." Data suggests that the term “xenophobia,” rather than “racism,” might 立
be more appropriate to describe trolls, who directed insults to broader groups of people not ‧ 國
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necessarily belonging to one race, e.g. ‘Americans’ and ‘Muslims.’ ‧
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characteristic of “aggression” (chapter 4.1) as trolls use these comments to offend and io
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not necessarily directed towards women, blacks, and homosexuals, respectively. For example, trolls may call community member(s) “bitch” though not specifically directing their comment towards women, or with the intention to demean woman per se. Trolls who used these types of terms in isolation were not automatically labeled as racist, sexist or homophobic. Instead, they needed to exhibit more telling behaviors in order to have been categorically labeled as having discriminatory sentiments. 104 Table 3. Discriminatory Practices of YouTube Trolls 立
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Table 3 105 i
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5.1 Discriminatory Tendencies of Trolls 5.1.1 Youtube Trolls and Sexism Of the discriminatory practices of YouTube trolls, they were least likely to demonstrate sexist attitudes, observable in only five trolls (22%). Through usernames and/or profile pictures, trolls were able to infer the gender of certain users as female and therefore target them with sexist insults, which may have differed otherwise, had their gender been unknown. These comments are typical of chauvinistic and male supremacist attitudes: 立
Example (95) 政 治 大
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(Babywannabe) bitch plz go back to kitchen and make me a sandwich and ur boyfriend Example (96) ‧
pewdiepie dick bitch y
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(Babywannabe) u fat ugly ho ewwww looking at u pic kills me dick al
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h e nand gycou hdon't (EpicNEd) LOL, okay. You called meh stupid i Uknow me. Fuckings girls, thinking they're smart. Go make me dinner and change mah dipers. Babywannabe asserts both his dominance over women in example (95) by ordering a female user to “make him a sandwich” and also objectifies another female user in example (96). Similar to Babywannabe, EpicNEd (97) also makes demands for a female user’s subservience and further resorts to a general insult of all “girls” being unintelligent. In examples (98)(99)(10) below, trolls such as Erim Aydinalp and MLG POTATO used sexist slurs and terms to refer to female users: 106 Example (98) (Erim Aydinalp) You are just a dumb bitch who is patiently waiting to suck pewdiepies dick . You can't even speak properly stupid slut Example (99) (MLG POTATO) +karen me u cnt even use prop3r grammar go 3 skool dirty blondie Example (100) (MLG POTATO) +Dani Dillard UM YOU'RE A DUMB BRUNETTE HOW WOULD YOU KNOW LEL)LE)LE)LE 立
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Finally, at least one troll, Jeenius Foo, consistently made offensive remarks regarding women and their natural physiological processes: er
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Example (101) ‧
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(Jeenius Foo) Why you getting your panties h e nin ga bcunch? h i WUas I talking to you? Shut the fuck up and don't comment until your time of the month is over. Example (102) (Jeenius Foo) A little over sensitive there aren't we? Must be that time of the month, Example (103) (Jeenius Foo) Dude, you're acting like a fucking retarded, hysterical teenage girl. Is it that time of the month? Example (104) (Jeenius Foo) Only have one point to make... Are you on your period too? 107 5.1.2 YouTube Trolls and Homophobia Insults in the wider context of overall online interaction commonly include homophobic references such as “gay,” “homo,” and “fag/faggot.” YouTube trolls and those they interacted with on PewDiePie’s videos were no exception: Example (105) (Babywannabe) ur right cuz I hate homos like u thats why u homo slut Example (106) 政 治 大
(Erim Aydinalp) Gays are the ones whos sick faggpt boy go play with your boyfriends dick 立
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(Jake Jeffery) You both sound so fuckin gay its embarresing (Shark zibr) +Christopher AndersonTV Stfu are you his bf or some shit Faggot go kill yourself er
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The comments above are some of the more indicative examples of homophobic sentiments al
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“fags” or “gay.” However, the lack of instances implies that the trolls in this context were not significantly homophobic, nor was their language considerably “extreme” in terms of animosity directed at homosexuals. 5.1.3 YouTube Trolls and Racism/Xenophobia YouTube trolls also exhibited discriminatory language in terms of racist sentiments as Phillips (2011) had alleged. For example, analysis has identified a few trolls that have 108 targeted “minority groups” such as blacks, as seen in examples (109) and (110), or Chinese (111): Example (109) (gazzak98) Your a failed fucking abortion I should know after your mum spent all those years on the streets taking big hard black ghetto dick. Example (110) (Babywannabe) ARE YOU A UGLY ASS BLACK DUDE WHO IS LONELY BECAUSE OF YOUR 政 治 大
VOICE AND FACE YOU UGLY ASS NIGGA 立
Example (111) ‧ 國
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(Erim Aydinalp) Youre so chinese that when I see you I see sushi. (Erim Aydinalp) You are even more chinese than jackie chan ‧
(Erim Aydinalp) Go eat some chinese guys dick because you are a chinese prostitute er
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set. Both exhibited all three discriminatory racism, homophobia and sexism. In h e indeologies: gchi U
example (109), Erim Aydinalp wrongly labels another user as Chinese who later denies this and says he is “British,” but Erim persists with a string of Chinese racist jokes to further antagonize him. A few racist comments were also directed towards users who possessed what trolls discerned as Muslim or Arabic names: Example (112) (SquieWeeBros) wassup terrorist killed any americans yet? (Ariyan Ahmed) Im no terrorist. IM CANADIAN 109 Example (113) (Polans Can Into Space) +Mo Abdrabboh I was recapping the idiocy. You just added more to it. Go fap to Al Queda. Example (114) (Σκεπτόμενη) +Tran Tri Kien you fucking muslim! how dare you don't believe what jesus Christ said The trolls in examples (112) and (113), may have drawn their judgments through 政 治 大
stereotypical assumptions that all Muslims and Arabs are terrorists, or simply spewed 立
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Σκεπτόμενη’s (114) directed target was truly Muslim or not, his comment illustrates xenophobic discrimination in the form of religious dogma. ‧
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with the internet’s “white centrality” as explained by Milner (2013). It appears trolls tend to i
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Example (115) (SquieWeeBros) i couldent care less about what you or any other inbread american retards think about my channel. Example (116) (Shark zibr) GAHGHAGHA WASTEYUTES GET A LIFE UGLY FUCKRS PLEASE KYS AND UR UGLY ASS WHITE CRACKER MOTHERS PLEASEEE Example (117) 110 (The Plague Doctor) Sorry I can't seem to understand you. Are you not speaking English you spanish cunt? SquieWeeBros (115) discriminates against “Americans” in general regardless of race while Shark zibr (116) uses a racist slur “cracker” to refer to a Caucasian person -­‐ it is presumed that Shark zibr is not white. Finally, The Plague Doctor (117) insults a user based on the language in which they wrote a comment. 立
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Up until now, this study has focused on various characteristics as exhibited in a ‧
roster of different trolls but it is also important to remember that, even on the same platform, not all trolls are equal. While all the trolls mentioned thus far were similarly y
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satisfying their need for lulz, the methods they employed and the lengths they were willing to go all differed. In this way, it may also be helpful to examine various trolls individually to al
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gain deeper insights as to the “whole th
roll.” will ighlight five trolls who i hU
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demonstrated social and motivational differences and all were unique in their own right. That is not to say that the other trolls featured in the study were not unique, but, because of space limitations, five were selected to represent the diversity of trolls and gain a clearer view about trolls as unique persons instead of an amalgam of various traits. 5.2.1 Babywannabe Babywannabe’s opening comment on PewDiePie’s video “GIRLFRIEND VS BOYFRIEND” -­‐ “People what this stupid homo called PewDiePie everyday are retarded his 111 not even funny check my channel instead” -­‐ illustrates the usage of aggression and resentment. From the outset, he declares his dislike of PewDiePie and his fans and seeks attention by telling others to view his channel. Babywannabe is one of only two trolls to have exhibited sexism, racism, and homophobia all together, the other being Erim Aydinalp described below. The entire duration of Babywannabe’s troll rampage on PewDiePie’s page seethes with hatred towards PewDiePie and his fans (19)(53)(91)(95)(96)(105)(110). Babywannabe is perceived to be an avid gamer, especially of the first person shooter (FPS) genre as his profile picture displays an FPS character and he has subscribed to 28 other 政 治 大
YouTube channels, an overwhelming majority of which belong to the “Let’s Play” genre. It is 立
assumed he is male, based on this affinity for violent and typically male-­‐centric games and ‧ 國
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also his frequent use of strong and offensive language. Babywannabe has also uploaded four of his own videos, all of which feature gameplay footage of FPS games such as ‧
“Battlefield 4” but they do not include commentary, thus not revealing his voice. Users had y
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Example (118) al
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left comments in two of his videos, mostly negative: Ch
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(Reverse Zach) u said i suck u suck (Babywannabe) Stfu bitch Example (119) (Emma van Item) no (Babywannabe) u fat bitch get the fuck off my channel From example (118), we can infer that Babywannabe frequently hates on other users’ pages or videos. Also, Emma van Item from example (119) was one of the users Babywannabe 112 managed to troll on PewDiePie’s video and she visited his page to leave a comment in retaliation. One other user left a positive message, which Babywannabe was quick to assess negatively: Example (120) (REDBLUEALEX99) Hey dude! I love your videos! they are SO good, you deserve even more views on your videos because they rock!!! Keep making more because Ill stop by and watch more! 政 治 大
(Babywannabe) Fuk you I bet you don't like my videos you just want me to check your 立
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After this, REDBLUEALEX99 upheld his intentions as purely benign and scathingly chided ‧
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(REDBLUEALEX99) I was subbed to your channel, but because I now see you're a homophobe ima unsub from you because that bothers me a lot. Every person should b treated as an equal weather they are gay, black, white. straight, bi, just letting you know now pal, you're not gonna get very far on youtube if you use words like that in a negative way. Sorry that I bothered you, I still think you have some pretty sick content. Bye :( (Babywannabe) jk dude am just kiding i swear but nice videos though there really good can you help me out on my channel (Babywannabe) Sorry my bad my big brother said that am very sorry 113 From here, we witness the rare instance in which the troll Babywannabe is remorseful for his antisocial behavior and reverses his negative attitude by complimenting REDBLUEALEX99’s videos and even asking for help. Babywannabe probably regretted his hasty and jaded judgment, which ultimately, only served to push away one of the few users who could’ve potentially been a friend instead of a foe. Babywannabe’s last statement, “Sorry my bad my big brother said that am very sorry,” seems to imply that he has an older brother who has to apologize for Babywannabe’s negative behavior. This apologetic stance 政 治 大
is markedly different from Babywannabe’s trollish behavior on PewDiePie’s page. 立
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experiences, that most trolls are “weak” and are not the same people in real life as they portray themselves to be online. In just a brief few lines of text, Babywannabe reveals his ‧
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and homophobic comments. Babywannabe to be in need of extra attention than h e nappears gchi U
other trolls as he tells others to visit his page, and also had a change in attitude towards REDBLUEALEX99 who might have been a potential fan if he had not been pushed away. Babywannabe illustrated resentment towards PewDiePie as Babywannabe felt that he deserved more attention, and also harbored resentment towards PewDiePie’s fans who were ”drinking his kool-­‐aid.“ Finally, Babywannabe perceived his trolling efforts as a game that he boastingly “won.” 5.2.2 Erim Aydinalp 114 Similar to Babywannabe, Erim Aydinalp also represents one of the more extreme examples of trolling, pursuing the outlandish theme of “PewDiePie as a child rapist” in order to rile up his victims. Erim Aydinalp and Babywannabe were also the only two trolls in the sample to have exhibited all discriminatory traits of racism, sexism and xenophobia. He is also one of only two trolls to have presumably used a real name and a real profile picture, the other being jelena jankovic. Erim Aydinalp’s profile picture displays a young man posing in front of a sports car (presumably himself) and it can be assumed that he is ethnically Turkish since he has 政 治 大
subscribed to several YouTube channels which contain Turkish language and he makes 立
reference to his Turkish ancestry in a few comments on his video page. Interestingly, Erim ‧ 國
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Aydinyalp was not subscribed to any gaming channels, unlike many of the other trolls, so he might have especially gone out of his way, visiting videos not in his area of interest, in order ‧
to troll PewDiePie’s fans. Erim Aydinalp subscribed to several channels which were y
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dedicated to the premise of pranking and trolling other people (fouseyTUBE, RomanAtwood, EpicFiveTV and VitalyzdTv). One of these channels actually includes a cover photo with text al
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that read “Pranks / Social Experiments h
/ Trolling / Craziness e n g c h i U & More.” Other subscribed pages attest to his masculinity such as bodybuilding (Savas Cebeci) or rap and hip hop music (Black Production, 3PACTVHD, DrDreVEVO). Erim Aydinalp posted a single video, titled “BMW Z4 / Kawasaki Ninja racing in Istanbul streets” and featured several comments from his enemies which include “Loser” and “No wonder you have no subscribers.” Presumably, these are users that Erim Aydinalp had managed to aggravate on other YouTube pages, and they had thus visited to comment on his video as a form of retribution. It can be ascertained that at least one of his enemies had come from an interaction from one of PewDiePie’s video, as seen in this reference: 115 Example (122) (Erim Aydinalp) Wow look at you you can't even understand simple things no wonder you watch that moron pewdiepie. Much of the same language and style, as explained in earlier sections (47)(48)(98)(106), are used by Erim Aydinyalp in his interactions with users on his posted video. They include sexual and crude insults: 立
Example (123) 政 治 大
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(Erim Aydinalp) hahahah Little pathetic fuckboy you are just mad that we fucked your ancestors and you have Turkish blood in your pathetic veins. ‧
Example (124) y
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(Erim Aydinalp) Jealous much worthless cunt ? I can buy your whole family with what i got in my wallet right now . You need a shrink ? It's alright I'll pay for it pathetic ugly n
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From these observations, Erim Aydinalp is inferred to be a young Turkish male who enjoys not only spectating videos about trolling and pranking, but also enjoys actively participating in such hobbies. He also exudes an extremely masculine figure who dislikes those who are different from himself and resorts to outlandish measures and extreme language in order to offend and disrupt other users. Erim Aydinyalp does not mind hurting others. In fact, he seems to relish it, growing in power the more people respond and react negatively to his comments. 116 5.2.3 MLG POTATO One of the most obvious trolling attempts belong to MLG POTATO who began the thread with the memetic comment about PewDiePie’s subscriber count – “how dufuq is there 20 million views theres 7 mil people on the planet omg hacks.” This comment proved to be an effective means of disruption as much of the community took notice and many responded, with comments ranging from the cordial to extremely hostile. No matter the response, MLG POTATO countered each reply in the same style, including nearly incomprehensible spelling and grammar: 立
Example (125) 政 治 大
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Example (126) 學
(MLG POTATO) ur grammar iz s0 bad g0 3 sckool u dumb nob (MLG POTATO) You guys i like it wen my poo poo splaash3s on ma bum wen is hit de t0ilet y
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Expressive of typical online “troll speak,” LG POTATO’s writing is rife of syntax and h eMn
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grammatical errors. This serves as a tactic in pulling users into a spiral of disruption. MLG POTATO also denied all users’ attempts to correct his original statement and frequently insulted his respondents. Except for a few occasional instances, MLG POTATO remained in character for the entire comment thread and had several times revealed his intentions to troll: Example (127) (MLG POTATO) This is a joke dumbass you're fun at parties* 117 Example (128) (MLG POTATO) Hey look, another brainless ass doesn't get the joke! Example (129) (MLG POTATO) dmbass is a joke u mus be fun at paarties In examples (127)(128)(129), MLG POTATO frames his actions as a “joke” and also implies that others should be reveling in the lulz along with him. This is consistent with the culture of lulz in which, not only the trolls themselves may enjoy the fruit of efforts, but others who 政 治 大
are in on the joke are also invited to laugh along (Bartlett, 2013). MLG POTATO, like many 立
other trolls, also takes pride in his success by boasting about the total number of comments ‧ 國
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his thread has amassed (63). MLG POTATO’s profile picture is that of an unpeeled potato sporting a baseball cap ‧
and a pair of sunglasses, although it is unknown what the ‘MLG’ stands for. His subscriptions y
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include mostly video games and comedy channels, but does not include PewDiePie’s channel. The largest indicator of MLG POTATO’s troll identity is an image of the troll face al
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meme plastered on his profile page’s bh
ackground banner e n g c h i Uand the word “TROLLTASTIC” sprawled across in red capital letters. His discussion page also includes several negative messages such as “U have the crappiest username in the world, asshole” and “Fuck u and ur shitty vids” from users who have likely had bouts with MLG POTATO on other YouTube pages. MLG POTATO has also uploaded numerous gameplay videos, especially for Roblox, a lego-­‐like massively multi-­‐player online (MMO) game, but they do not include any voice commentary whatsoever. When interacting with others on his own pages, whether it is his discussion page or on his videos’ comments section, MLG POTATO appears to be a much saner character than when he was trolling on PewDiePie’s video. 118 Example (130) (Callum Evans) And u had this channel for two years but is still shit, coz u have 5 videos and 10 subs (MLG POTATO) Lol someones hating :). I can bet you have nothing else to do in life so you come all the way to this page on my channel to hate. You need help. Example (131) (Owowkiller) Roblox is so fucking gay. 政 治 大
(MLG POTATO) I don't play roblox any more. And besides, just because you don't like it, 立
doesn't bean you have to be a dick about it. ‧ 國
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Example (132) (MLG POTATO) It's funny how all you do is hate, just like how you went through a whole ‧
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games, then don't watch them. Act like normal people. y
channel that said stampy on it to hate. Get a life, both of you. If you don't like my videos are al
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Here, we see a radically different aspect POTATO which is almost unrecognizable h oef M
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from the trollish character he portrayed on PewDiePie’s page. In fact, in these interactions, he reveals that he too is human and has feelings just like any other human, especially when others have attacked his page and his videos. It is ironic that the very same reasoning used by MLG POTATO towards his haters -­‐ “If you don't like my videos are games, then don't watch them” -­‐ is often exclaimed by most of PewDiePie’s fans when they encounter trolls who dislike PewDiePie. It seems the troll is not so tough when found on the opposite end. But then again, MLG POTATO might represent the type of troll who pursues what they 119 perceive as harmless lulz instead of extremists, such as Erim Aydinalp and Babywannabe, who are bent on pushing the envelope in terms of offensiveness. 5.2.4 jelena jankovic jelena jankovic represents a unique anomaly in the sample as the only (overtly) female user, hailing a female user picture and what is assumed to be her real given name; her linked google+ page also indicates that she is female. She, similar to MLG POTATO, expressed disruptive goals when she first posted, “How PewDiePie has 32 billion subscribers 政 治 大
when there is only 7 billion people in this world? (__) waits for 12-­‐year old kids” and was 立
relatively tame in her interactions with other users. Although jelena jankovic’s original ‧ 國
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comment managed to attract a throng of backlash, she did not post frequently and demonstrated a passive-­‐aggressive approach when dealing with her haters (20)(21). She ‧
was also known for outwardly expressing her trollish intentions by posting comments like, y
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(59), as well as writing troll-­‐like comments (37). al
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“I'm enjoying this...gets popcorn” and mentioning view counts as a testament to her success n
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On her YouTube profile page, jelena had subscribed to about 60 channels, h e njankovic gchi U
more than half of which fall into the video game genre and others that fall into categories such as general interest and history. She did not upload videos of her own. Interestingly, PewDiePie is one of her subscribed channels, suggesting that she may not harbor any resentment towards PewDiePie, especially since she did not mention him negatively in any way when trolling on his page. Perhaps jelena jankovic was looking to engage in some harmless fun and/or may really have harbored negative feelings towards PewDiePie’s fans, as indicated when she insulted their intelligence. Furthermore, her profile page gave no indication that she habitually partakes in trollish activities. 120 Overall, jelena jankovic’s trolling venture on PewDiePie’s page may be viewed more as online mischief rather than a full out attempt to aggravate others, especially since she did not resort to direct aggression as exhibited by other YouTube trolls. jelena jankovic’s gender may also have been a factor in affecting her trolling methods and her overall easygoing nature in comparison with other trolls. 5.2.5 Jeenius Foo Babywannabe and Erim Aydinyalp practiced more aggressive forms of trolling while MLG 政 治 大
POTATO and jelena jankovic exhibited higher levels of disruption. Jeenius Foo belongs 立
somewhere in the middle, employing a mix of aggressive-­‐disruptive tactics, first when he ‧ 國
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made a negative comment about Marzia’s voice (Marzia is PewDiePie’s girlfriend), and later towards those who had replied to his comment. Jeenius Foo is assumed to be a male ‧
because he refers to his girlfriend several times and has also frequently made sexist y
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comments about women and “that time of month” (101)(102)(103)(104). Throughout his entire comment chain, Jeenius Foo reinforces his original assertion regarding his dislike of al
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Marzia’s voice while also finding ways h
to deflect backlash e n g c h i Uor crafting witty retorts to others’ attacks: Example (133) (Radix Malorum) Let's not kid yourself, you're not gonna even get a 1st date with a chick like that. (Jeenius Foo) Clearly you've never seen my GF. Example (134) 121 (xXxChRiSsGoOxXx) She is a very lovely person and hate her couse of her voice is not a reason to hate someone :) (Jeenius Foo) Never said I hate her, I just said she's as annoying as a gas that won't pass. Example (133) portrays Jeenius Foo as an individual who is sometimes able to deflect negativity without the need to retaliate aggressively. Once again in example (134), he does not seem to be overly aggressive and exercises control, unlike Babywannabe and Erim Adinyalp, admitting that he has nothing against Marzia as a person, only her voice. 政 治 大
Ironically, though Jeenius Foo explicitly exhibits sexist attitudes, he adamantly denies all 立
accusations of racism: ‧
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(Leonidas Gameplay) thats her accent, because english isnt her first language. you're just er
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being racist (Jeenius Foo) How the fuck is finding someone's voice annoying racist? Are you fucking al
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retarded? You one of these kooks who hscream racism ieverytime e n g c h U you are being criticized? What a braindead moron. Example (136) (andre starbac) u are soo racist (Jeenius Foo) Get the fuck outta here you race baiter. Example (137) (Jeenius Foo) Why do you fucking retards keep saying she's from Italy? It's not her accent that's annoying, it's her fucking 4yr old voice, dumb fuck. 122 Jeenius Foo has subscribed to eclectic collection of 400+ channels so it is hard to determine his exact interests. He has subscribed to gaming channels, but not to PewDiePie, and a range of other channels such as news, sports, comedy, pop culture, and atheism. Some channels were of particular interest including those about pranking and trolling others (TrollarchOffice, The Official Pranks Channel, PublicPrank), interest in “the thug life” (Thug Life ET, Thugged Life, Thug Life Compilations), and finally channels about civil rights, police, and (LIVEFREE ORDIE, Police Brutality (Crime Type) Violence, LibertyIsForEveryone.com, Cop Block). The last two suggest Jeenius Foo may hold interests in leading “the thug life” in real 政 治 大
life and may harbor ill feelings towards police and law enforcement. 立
Finally, a couple of users left negative comments on Jeenius Foo’s YouTube profile ‧ 國
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discussion page and both similarly read, “Bitch , instead of hating , why don't you just get on with your life and watch thug life videos all day ?” Both users were not present in the ‧
interactions on PewDiePie’s YouTube page, implying Jeenius Foo has a habit of trolling and y
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offending users on other YouTube pages as well. It is difficult to determine Jeenius Foo’s true intentions -­‐ if he had planned on initiating a trolling raid from the start or if he honestly al
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did not like Marzia’s voice and ended uh
p trolling only ai fter e n g c h Ureceiving much backlash from his comment. Nonetheless, near the end of his comment thread, Jeenius Foo does express pride from his trolling accomplishments as he boasts about his total comments and likes. 123 5.3 Social Implication of YouTube Trolls Outside of examining trollish practices, which tells us what trolls do, it is also important to investigate the social implications of trolling, which reveals more about who trolls are. It appears that in this study’s sample of trolls, within the specific context of PewDiePie’s YouTube videos, sexist (23%), homophobic (27%), and racist (36%) sentiments were not significantly pronounced. Additionally, only 2 out of the 23 total trolls (4%) exhibited all three of these characteristics – Babywannabe and Erim Aydinalp, both of whom were found to engage in more extreme forms of trolling. Finally, only 4 trolls (17%), 政 治 大
including the two above, exhibited more than one of these discriminatory traits. 立
Previous scholars have mentioned that young white males comprise the largest ‧ 國
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demographic of online trolls. The data from this study is not sufficient to support the ‧
veracity of their claims since the trolls’ true identities could not be determined. Only three users appeared to have used real names, two of which appeared to have used real pictures; y
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one was a woman. Content analysis of YouTube troll comments did indicate that troll targets do include women, homosexuals and minorities but the trend was not as significant al
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htehese as was predicted. That is not to say that ot harbor such sentiments or that n gtrolls c hdo i nU
they do not engage in trolling such groups on other YouTube pages or venues, but in the specific context of PewDiePie’s YouTube videos, this does not appear to be the case. In hindsight, PewDiePie’s videos may not have been an ideal place for trolls who aim to assert “white male supremacy.” First, PewDiePie himself fits the profile of a young white male. Furthermore, his infamous fan base, also known as the “Bro Army,” is presumably comprised of young prepubescent males, with statistics indicating 69% of PewDiePie’s viewers are indeed males (Miller, 2014). These two factors may offset the “white male v. others” mentality especially since the demographics of trolls might more closely resemble 124 the demographics of their victims. Furthermore, YouTube and PewDiePie attract a global viewership so there are no large out-­‐group/in-­‐group indicators based on race, gender, etc. Instead the war can be more accurately described as being fought between the “Bro Army” and non-­‐fans. Perhaps, a better model to determine the social implications of trolling in sexist, racist and homophobic contexts might be to investigate YouTubers who identify as women, homosexual, or a minority status (or race other than “white”). For now, in the specific case of YouTube community for PewDiePie’s videos, the case for the “white male centrality” of 政 治 大
trolls and their hate towards others outside this “demographic” is not compelling. 立
One deviation from previous troll studies indicate that YouTube trolls may not ‧ 國
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necessarily be racist towards minority groups as several trolls displayed negative sentiments to wider ranges of people such as SquieWeeBros (115) who expressed distaste for ‧
Americans and several trolls who discriminated against the wider category of Muslim people y
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(112)(113)(114). It appears that to use the term “minority groups” differs according to the population in question and thus, previous troll studies which may have been conducted in al
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western countries might have focused h
more on themes e n g c h i oUf “white majority” and “white centrality” of the troll population (A. Chen, 2012, 2014; Milner, 2013; Phillips, 2013). Also, YouTube is unique from many other internet platforms as it brings together a truly global community of users hailing from countries all over the world. Therefore, perhaps it would be more fitting view YouTube trolls through the lens of “trolls vs. others,” as in xenophobia, rather than “whites vs. minorities,” or racism. As mentioned in section 2.2, many studies and experts have noted that anonymity serves as a chief affordance for individuals to engage in negative anti-­‐social behaviors online, such as trolling, when they might be less inclined to do so in real life where their identities 125 are known and can thus be held accountable for their actions. This study has confirmed these claims. Most trolls did not use a real name or real profile picture. Though it cannot be determined if truly genuine, only three trolls (13%) appears to use real names – Erim Aydinalp, jelena jankovic, and Jake Jeffrey -­‐ and only two (7%) of them used what appeared to be real profile pictures, Erim Aydinalp and jelena jankovic. No other information about these or any other trolls, such as address or contact information, was made available on their profile pages. Scholars have pointed out that there are varying degrees of anonymity and different 政 治 大
classifications of anonymity. Even if they do not use their real name and picture, YouTube 立
users may not possess “true anonymity” since they have a profile which, to some extent, ‧ 國
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records their activity on YouTube. However, they are still anonymous in the sense that they are “unidentifiable.” “Unidentifiability,” as Lapidot-­‐Lefler & Barak (2012) explained, is an ‧
aspect of anonymity and is a user’s condition of being unknown to online others in terms of y
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personal details such as name, appearance, address, contact information, etc. But how about Erim Aydinalp, jelena jankovic, and Jake Jeffrey who appeared to use al
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real names and/or profile pictures? Perhaps trolls did not feel the need to mask h e nthese gchi U
themselves and just had tougher skins than other trolls who hid behind higher levels of anonymity. Or, as some scholars have noted, there is a difference between being anonymous and “feeling” anonymous (Christopherson, 2007; Kennedy, 2006). Therefore, some YouTube users may have felt that using their real names and profile pictures was not enough to detract from their anonymity in the sense that other users would still not be able to identify who they were. And even if they did, they’d most likely be in completely different parts of the world. 126 A larger part of this study attempted to gain more empirical information about the motivations behind trolling. Unfortunately, I was not afforded the luxury of being able to directly ask YouTube trolls about the driving forces behind their activities, but after examining their interactions with others, it appeared that they enjoyed what they were doing. This entertainment, joy and satisfaction from stirring up other users can only be seen as reinforcing the concept of lulz which, as explained in Chapter 2, forms the entire framework for troll culture. Lulz as a motivation also demonstrates the sadistic nature of trolls as proven by Binns (2012) and one troll, JokingAreYou, even admitted to being a “sociopathic asshole.” 立
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While it is true that there may be smaller secondary motivations such as boredom or ‧ 國
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resentment towards PewDiePie and his fans, trolls are mostly in it for the lulz. There are several indicators of this in the data. Most obviously, many trolls reveal their true nature ‧
through comments which demonstrate “success” as discussed in chapter 4.4. This may be in y
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the form of implying winning against others (53)(55), or how the user succeeded in manipulating other users (54), getting others to react negatively and/or reply to their posts al
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(56)(60)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71). Consistent assertions (2012), trolls also have hweith nKgrappitz’s chi U
been shown to measure their success/lulz, through the number of comments and posts they managed to generate (60)(61)(62)(63)(64). Some trolls will express their lulz by posting comments that suggest laughing at others and gaining a sense of enjoyment from others’ distress (69)(71)(72)(73). However, the results reveal that only 15 trolls (65%) demonstrated ‘success.’ While it is impossible to accurately speak for the remaining 35% of the trolls, it is my supposition that a majority of these trolls were also primarily motivated by lulz. Trolls who do not openly make reference to their success or lulz, does not necessarily detract from the 127 possibility that this may be a motivation for them. On the contrary, it may only help to strengthen the troll’s effectiveness as it contributes to deception. For example, Erim Aydinyalp is considered one of the most radical trolls identified in this study but he did not make reference to success or lulz. In fact, it was Erim Aydinyalp’s steely resolve, through continually and consistently asserting his “belief” that PewDiePie was a child rapist, that made him more powerful than other trolls who openly admit they are in it for the lulz. Furthermore, it appears that though trolls may hold secondary motivations, such as boredom and the need for attention, it still does not explain why trolls as much time and 政 治 大
effort for trolling specifically. Even resentment towards PewDiePie and his “Bro Army” alone 立
does prove to be a sufficient motivator for trolling. As mentioned in chapter 2, online haters ‧ 國
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are also resentful but they aim mostly to share their hate, of someone or something, with others, whereas trolls are more engrossed in sparking negative reactions and responses. In ‧
fact, trolls go out of their way to take part in anti-­‐social practices because they enjoy it. For y
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Finally, it appears that some trolls U of trolling on other YouTube h eexhibited n g c ha pi attern pages. This is deduced after observing trolls’ profiles whose uploaded videos or discussion page may have included negative comments from other users, as observed in the cases of Erim Aydinyalp, MLG Potato, Jeenius Foo, and Babywannabe in the previous section. Such comments provide little context and the users are different from the ones that trolls interacted with in the data collected. Though it is not possible to search for where these users interacted with the trolls, it is apparent that these users have gone out of their way to visit the troll’s profile page to post negative comments, estimably stemming from aggravation and anger. It can therefore be assumed that the specific trolling instances 128 observed for each troll were not isolated incidents. Many of these trolls possess some habit or pattern of trolling perhaps on other YouTube (may or not be PewDiePie’s videos), or possibly even on other platforms across the internet. If so, it is assumed that the troll engages in such practices because it is pleasurable enough for them to continue to do so, again signifying a need for the lulz. 立
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Chapter 6: Limitations It is an acknowledged limitation that the findings from this research may be influenced to some degree by the researcher’s own personal biases as all data was procured and analyzed by myself, an individual researcher. In addition, through selecting Hardaker’s existing model as the foundation for which all data was to be compared, analyzed and tested, I, the researcher may also have been influenced into searching for these set characteristics, more so than if I had begun from a ground-­‐level approach. By making clear these limitation in terms of the researcher’s biases, I can only hope to maintain that all 政 治 大
research was performed in accordance with the researcher’s own highest personal 立
standards of objectivity. It must also be noted that this study has contributed unique ‧ 國
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findings not presented Hardaker’s model, such as that of a pronounced characteristic of ‧
“resentment” and “lulz” as a subset of “success.” sit
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As expressed multiple times in this study, trolls vary according to their contexts. The io
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presented in this study are not intended to reflect all YouTube trolls, but it may offer a glimpse into what kinds of characteristics typical YouTube trolls may possess, especially in large fan communities of popular YouTubers such as PewDiePie. Possible directions for future research could attempt to explore the discriminatory practices of trolls through researching YouTubers who belong what previous literature has identified as typical troll targets such as women, minority groups or homosexuals. In addition, all conclusions were drawn from the analysis of recorded interactions of trolls and other users with which they interacted. As Hardaker (2010) explained, analyzing online text has its inherent drawbacks as researchers are unable to infer the true intents 130 behind the writings, but nonetheless, the researcher has confidence in his or her analysis. However, it would be helpful to directly ask trolls about their practices and motivations. Perhaps future research should aim to interview trolls directly to answer much of these elusive questions. Finally, this study primarily investigated the YouTube comments of trolls. In real life, the comments section of any YouTube page, especially on videos with large view counts, include a smorgasbord of interaction between many users at a single time and although trolls may act as the catalyst for hate, community members on the “other side” are also an 政 治 大
important part of the equation. Many times, the overzealous Bro Army are also quick to 立
quelch even the slightest hint of criticism towards their beloved leader, PewDiePie. ‧ 國
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Ironically, often times, in attempts to defend PewDiePie, it is his fans who are the main proponents of hate (against all opposition), blurring the line between fandom and ‧
fanaticism, and even at times, fans may partake in trollish activities themselves. It would y
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Chapter 7: Conclusion It appears that the study of trolls is still quite premature in academic discourse, though their presence can be felt in increasing force and their effects more pronounced than ever. As of writing this section, the President of the United States recently joined Twitter on May 18, 2015 and has since received a string of racist and vitriolic comments – a clear demonstration that no one is immune from the negativity of the internet. Trolls represent one aspect of the internet’s propensity for negativity and hate, which as most experts have pointed, is fueled by anonymity. There have been several academic attempts 政 治 大
to study trolls according to their specific environments since there are many subsets, and 立
this study has made it a point to include YouTube as one of these platforms in which trolls ‧ 國
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may be observed and studied. ‧
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website of the modern world and has intertwined together a truly global community of io
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study aimed to further elucidate the motivations and practices of trolls that plague YouTube, Ch
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specifically. As proposed by Hardaker’s (2010) study on trolls in asynchronous CMC settings, YouTube trolls similarly expressed traits of ‘deception,’ ‘aggression,’ ‘disruption’ and ‘success,’ to varying degrees. Aggression, common in all trolls, was found to have been the most successful method for trolls given its ability to attract attention, elicit negative emotions and spur responses from community members. Furthermore, resentment, unmentioned in Hardaker’s study, was discovered as an additional characteristic of YouTube trolls, especially in the unique context of PewDiePie who many trolls felt branded as an overhyped YouTuber who is playing to a large group of overbearing and juvenile fans, similar to the Sierra’s (2014) “Kool-­‐Aid” hypothesis. When analyzing the discriminatory 132 sentiments of trolls, there was underwhelming evidence to back up this claim observed by other researchers but PewDiePie’s identity as a white male and the demographic of his fanbase might also have been a factor in offsetting this discriminatory aspect of trolls. Several trolls also exhibited shifts in character and behavior when they were not in “troll mode.” For example, MLG POTATO and Babywannabe portrayed much more reasonable and “humane” versions of themselves on their own profile pages, contrasting greatly from their exaggerated demeanors during trollish escapades on PewDiePie’s videos. At one point, Babywannabe even expressed remorse for his offensive character -­‐ something 政 治 大
that would never have been expected if one were to base their judgments solely on the 立
posts made on PewDiePie’s video. These small details reveals somewhat the fragility and ‧ 國
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humanness of trolls that they try so hard to hide. Drawing to an end, we are once again revisited by the fundamental question raised ‧
in the beginning of this study, “What are trolls?” The findings presented, actually lend y
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further credence towards the notion of online trolls as elusive and enigmatic characters. Investigating select trolls brought to light revelations about trolls as unique individuals, al
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which differed in characteristics even th
hough they were e n g c h i tUrolling on the same platform. Some trolls such as Erim Aydinalp and Babywannabe represented the extreme sides of trolling, as they exhibited aggressive characteristics in order to rile up others. Leaning towards the tamer end of the trolling spectrum, trolls such as jelena jankovic and MLG POTATO exhibited more disruptive behaviors in order to lead community members into a spiral of unproductive discussion. Located somewhere in the center were trolls like Jeenius Foo who used a balance of aggressive-­‐disruptive techniques in order to achieve lulz. It may be useful for future research to investigate trolls on a continuum in terms of characteristics (aggressive to disruptive) or severity (mischief to sociopathic). 133 Though trolls cannot simply be broadly categorized in simple terms such as “trouble-­‐
makers” or “criminals,” it is concluded that the common denominator of all trolls, at least in those observed through this study, is that they all revel in “lulz,” seeking to elicit negative emotional reactions in online others for their own entertainment, joy and satisfaction. Therefore, the findings of this study are consistent with those of previous scholars who have noted that the primary motivation for many trolls is in fact the lulz. This is illustrated through the explicit expression of ‘success,’ the use of other various tactics in order to maximize their effectiveness in provoking and distressing others, and a pattern of trolling 政 治 大
habits as exhibited by some trolls. It is therefore concluded that many trolls simply do what 立
they do because they enjoy evoking negative emotions in others for their own joy and ‧ 國
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entertainment, much like sadists. There is still much to be learned about trolls on YouTube and across many other ‧
platforms. Hopefully, this study on YouTube trolls may open further avenues for research on y
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trolls and other anti-­‐social deviants in computer-­‐mediated-­‐communication avenues. Such research may pave the way for online platforms such as YouTube and its users in developing al
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solutions that may not be able to completely but may assist in managing troll h e ncgure, chi U
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