Trolls: A democratic tradition

Troll tracker: Seriously, if you squint just right, she starts to look like a troll, but cuter, much, much cuter.
Photo: Heidi Fedak

I spend quite a bit of time lurking around the Bluffton Today blogs. It's part of the work I'm doing for my thesis and usually, it's quite enjoyable.

That is, it was enjoyable until last week when I stumbled on a post that was so annoying, so over the top, so troublesome and irritating, I knew it could be just one thing: a troll.

Traditionally, trolls trawl other people's blogs looking for places where they can comment and cause problems. But this troll takes a different approach. He wields his blog like a weapon. There, wedged within the blogs on Bluffton, peaking out from the posts on pets, Buzz tucks in tempting tid-bits intended to incite turmoil and trouble

I know many people would call Buzz a baiter, a trouble maker, a troll. And, perhaps, he is. Still, I (and the other Bluffton bloggers) can't resist. We read the posts and the comments they draw, even though we know we shouldn't. We're just adding fuel to Buzz's raging bonfire.

Or are we? If the Internet can build a virtual community (and I, along with many others, contend that it can), then isn't Buzz a basic part of that? One of the many unfounded fears (Warning: PDF) about the Internet is that it allows people to seek out only the information they're interested in, that it gives them carte blanche to ignore divergent opinions, that it turns them into thoroughbreds, with their eyes focused on one thing and one thing alone: their opinion and the people who support it.

Don't get me wrong; trolls can be disruptive, dismissive and disagreeable. But they can also peel away those blinders and offer us a divergent opinion. Since when is that a bad thing?