Being a prick on the internet because you can. Typically unleashing one or more cynical or sarcastic remarks on an innocent by-stander, because it's the internet and, hey, you can.
Guy: "I just found the coolest ninja pencil in existence."
Other Guy: "I just found the most retarded thread in existence."
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A troll in the sense of an internet troll has many different meanings. Not all trolls go to a message board and spam it with flames, racism, and Goatse before getting banned 5 minutes later. Trolling is a hobby in the same vein as prank phone calls, and the true objective of trolling is to be clever and creative in getting a reaction out of the troll victims.
Skilled trolls especially like trolling large-scale websites such as MySpace or LiveJournal where it is harder to get banned. Trolling a site such as GameFAQs is more difficult, as the TOS is very strict and the moderators are harder on trolls.
Common victims of trolls: liberals, hippies, peta, gay rights activists, otaku, furries, harry potter fans, etc
Skilled trolls from LJ: heavenablaze, gunlord, oni+, omg_a_terrorist, bloodlent, abcuqrc, chessnut1134
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The delicate art of fucking with people's emotions or perceived conception of reality, logic or social norms either over the internet or IRL by adopting butthurtful behaviors and/or speech with the sole purpose of lulz. What is true to say though is that trolls are insecure people who want to boost their hurt confidence (often done by other trolls) by asserting their dominance over people they consider sensitive or at least exploitable enough to being hurt. Otherwise, trolling can be viewed as exercising overkill in verbal or visual sadism.
ENCYCLOPEDIA DRAMATICA. That is what you only need to know if you want to know what trolling really is all about.
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Being a Valorant Tier 1 pro team and having a strat on Fracture defense, where you leave one teammate alone in tower to die for no fucking reason
TMV: "Damn, this is even worse than the Aztec sacrifice, EG are just straight up trolling"
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Ben: I trolled a burns victims ward about my dead baby getting burnt alive you shoulda seen there face
Lucy: but your online how can you see there face
Ben: J3POOOOOOORDIQ Lucy
Lucy: what????
While hated by most, these people are typically non-social for reasons beyond their control, and manage to get that one glimpse at society by eliciting responses from forum-goers who, nine times out of ten, think they know everything and that anything that goes against the norm is bad. There are of course the assholes who do it just for fun, but a lot of these people are suffering: people with manic (or often just plain old) depression, people with real issues in real life, or people who's real life isn't as cupcakes and unicorns as people on the internet assume.
I say this because I know people in real life who many would consider trolls, and they "troll" on forums because they receive no attention from their family and very little from anyone else. They are saints for putting up with it in real life, but it'd be unhealthy to pent up all their frustration. So what do they do? They speak out on the internet, often in obnoxious and annoying matters. The very fact that people respond to what they say is important to them, just because they get satisfaction in knowing that some people somewhere acknowledge their existence, and perhaps more importantly their opinion. Believe me, most trolls you see aren't "a poor excuse of a human being". Their lives in real life is worse than many could imagine. Everyone needs to vent sometimes.
Troll: WOW U FUCKS NARUTO IS FOR HOMOS ONLY.
Forum-goers: U poor excuse for a human being you need to die
Troll (in real life): Man, I don't really like Naruto. But no one knows that. No one in my life give a flying fuck about anything I say or do.
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One of many unsung internet heroes who are almost entirely misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, many trolls are actually quite intelligent. Their habitual attacks on forums is usually a result of their awareness of the pretentiousness and excessive self-importance of many forum enthusiasts. As much as people may hate trolls, they are highly effective - their actions bring much of the stupidity of other forum users out into the great wide open.
Man, that troll really owned those dumb forum users who take themselves too damn seriously.
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