Trolling 101 pt. 2 (The 5 S's and examples)
Oct. 28, 2013Welcome back to our useful guide on Trolling. Now that you’ve identifiedwhat type of troll you are(or would like to be). We can get started with the basics on how to become a Master Troll.
Seriousness is a key aspect of your trolling career, and much of your success will depend on your ability to keep a poker face. One of the keys to being a great troll is getting people to take you seriously. This is much different than being “serious”. I will explain: You can often spot a troll by how hard he tries to get you to take him seriously. You DON’T want this failtroll to be you. Great trolls can get people to do believe them with minimum effort and without making the bait look obvious. The trick is to act natural. Be convincing, but not overbearing. Be friendly and not defensive. I will elaborate more on this later with examples, but for now just know that in order to get people to take you seriously you sometimes have to be not serious.
Sarcasm is the bread and butter of the would be troll. How good you are about being sarcastic will make or break your rise into Trolldom. To become a great troll you must master Sarcasm. There is a fine line you are aiming for and it is roughly somewhere between having the average person believing you are serious and having the smart ones “wondering” if you are, but are too polite to call you out or are smart enough to not get involved. Any troll can make bullshit statements, but a good one can convince some people that they are true or at the very least “might be”. If you even make people wonder for a brief while, you will be just fine. What? I’m serious!
It’s not hard to be an average troll, but a great one is serene. People are shouting at you and calling you names that would make your mother run them over with her car? How do you handle it? Do you react or do you stay calm? Great trolls stay calm. Why? Because you seem more genuine when you do. Thus causing just a few more people to buy into the bullshit you are selling (as an added bonus it tends to drive the people calling you names into a further rage, which is just delightful on it’s own). To be perfectly honest this is not as hard as it seems. When you begin trolling with the mindset that you are going to troll, you aren’t being serious, so it’s hard to take what others say to heart (warning: that doesn’t mean it can’t happen). If you aren’t sure how to respond say nothing. It will keep you from undoing all the fine work you’ve done until you can get composed and carry on.
Be Smart. Great Trolls are smart ones. You have to be creative and react quickly (unless you are trying to be The Dumbass, in which case you can’t really fail). You may have to do a bit of research to find something somewhat creditable to Troll about. You may have to wait for the right moment or for the best response before beginning or replying. You have to pick the right person or people to troll. These are generally people who are newish to whatever you are trolling about or ones who “think” they know everything about said topic. It is much more satisfying to troll the latter of the two (because they are arrogant asses), but considerably more difficult. It’s best to start with the earlier of the two and hone your skills before attempting the second.
This has actually two parts. You want to get the satisfaction of a job well trolled, and at the same time deny whoever it is you are trolling the satisfaction of ruining it for you (these are the people that make trolling worth it). You can look at trolling, in more advanced cases, as sort of a verbal spar (if you are playing The Devil’s Advocate) or as a chess match (if you are playing The Fisher). When playing The Devil’s Advocate there will generally always be a clear winner and loser to the intelligent observer. The great thing about trolling, however, is that you always win to a degree (since you almost always rattle the cage of someone). But if you should you lose, don’t react and give satisfaction to whomever you lost to. Odds are if you appear calm, you will still create a similar effect you were going for. When playing The Fisher it’s not always clear. Sometimes it’s even hard to tell if you’ve “won”. It’s important here to have faith in your trolling abilities, so that you can have peace of mind that you ruined someone’s day.
Remember these 5 S’s and you will be in good shape.
A great way to start trolling is with the following example: (in global chat or any chat with at least a good number of people) “I just did x DPS or x damage”, where x is slightly larger than what has been known to be possible (I know, math, what can you do). The key here is to make the number only slightly unbelievable. If you make it too high, no one will believe you and you can’t even troll the tools in the virtual shed. What will follow is someone disclaiming your proclamation (or someones) and your response here is key. Be polite and not defensive. Tell them how true it is and that you didn’t believe it at first either. You want to sound genuine, NOT LIKE A TROLL. You want the person to get played along as long of possible before he realizes he was trolled. And then BAM! He will feel so dumb, Jersey Shore will look intelligent. Practice this one. It’s simple and easy.
Use this example: “Democrats (or Republicans, depending on your location) will get things sorted out”. Now the key here is to pick the opposite political faction of the person you are speaking with or at the very the one which he has more disagreement with. You want him to disagree with your statement. More than likely he/she will laugh if you got it right and not believe you at all. It is at this point you have to follow up with something specific or somewhat more serious and keep you cool. You don’t want it to be too serious though. You don’t want a political debate, you just want to make the person think you do. Same something like, “We’ll have Obamacare soon, that will be nice” or “Our military can definitely justify billions of dollars a year”. At this point the person should take you more seriously and you are free to chose how to proceed as he get’s more and more irritated (The Devil’s Advocate for the win).
In a forum use this example: “Has anyone noticed how crappy the new x is?”. I this case x is a popular feature of whatever you are commenting about. This will undoubtedly prompt responses calling for your genitals to shoved in places that would hurt (meat grinders are a popular choice), and then you will have to keep your cool and respond. Give some half-assed example of what you mean and then calmly justify it with wit and charm. Send those forum police back to the shit hole they belong in. That’ll teach em.
Trolling takes patience and practice. I’ve given you a great place to start. Go forth and reek havoc on the virtual world, or real world if you are so bold!
You can read more random and funny articleshere.
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
I eat toddler trolls as an appetizer. Then consume each course of troll with gusto. But the main course troll always makes me salivate in anticipation!
…and desert is always some sweet little troll complimented by an exquisite wine finish.
😛
nom nom….Oh, soooo gud!
Feature image Skare, circa 1984? First time he brought the Apple IIE home I believe.
Har dee har har. That’s not me. That’s my cousin. Obviously.
Skaretroll?
Skarederella. He’s the pretty member of the family.
Glass slippers…FTW!
Ok that made me LoL for real. Hahaha
All I can say is how much I love getting hatemail, only sad part is the small percentage that are smart enough to make it interesting enough. The rest are the dumbass or true noobs and that’s never really fun for me. Well done, a fine read for any that knows the trolls.
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