Jason Wilson picks up on the Burchell attack piece on bloggers I wrote about earlier today, and asks some pertinent questions. He also points to comments at Public Opinion:
He’s just trolling on an op-ed page.
Posted by: dj | June 23, 2008 10:33 AM
“He’s just trolling on an op-ed page.”
True. Baiting bloggers is the new tactic for attention seekers.
Posted by: Lyn | June 23, 2008 10:45 AM
Coincidentally, there’s a new post by danah boyd at apophenia about the diffusion of troll-like behaviour outside the intertubes:
I’m deeply disturbed by the proliferation of troll-like behavior in contemporary life. Why are public figures increasingly appearing whose whole identity is wrapped around driving others batty? Why does it seem as though more people are starting to write controversial books purely to make money off of the attention they receive when others attack them? Why are reputable publications publishing these authors’ tirades against others that are intended specifically to draw them out in a public fight? I guess we know the answer… Or at least the equation. Attention = money. And in the world of media, attention = advertising revenue.
Isn’t the “attack dog” style of column (and or “blog”) favoured by News Limited really just one almighty troll, designed to garner traffic and thus revenue? And isn’t danah boyd on to something when she argues this phenomenon is much bigger than the internets?
Elsewhere: More from Lyn at Public Opinion.
Well there’s this guy.
Just followed your link, Leinad. I think that’s what you’d call a ‘trollblog’. If you read it and get pissed off, he’ll be happy.
Yes, Trolling is exactly what it is – the op-ed pages sometimes feel like one big cobbled stone bridge.
It’s not just the ex-GG that’s guilty though, nor even Murdoch papers.
A commenter at my blog recently pointed this out w/r/t Jim Schembri’s distinguished and measured remarks about jazz. Catherine Deveny at The Age is another one. They don’t specifically bait bloggers but the op-ed format is obviously viewed as an opportunity, nay an obligation, to be as provocative as possible.
Skepticlawyer: The first link is more the ‘in real life’ bit. Though wether or not Dr. Phil counts as real life is debatable.
Leinad,
I actually know somebody like the mysoginist. Nearly 40 years after The Female Eunuch he still thinks the world is coming to an end because of the influence of feminism. I haven’t seen him for years. Interestingly, he does like Camille Paglia. (So do I, but probably for her literary rather than her social criticism.Though I did find the opening chapter of The Sexual Personae – is the title right – extremely funny.)
Paul, that’s quite consistent. CP is a vituperative antifeminist herself, as well as an excellent example of the kind of writer Kim is talking about.
Possibly one of the earliest examples of the “attack writer” when the culture wars were still a new thing, Helen, I’d suggest.
Mark: So she’s like the crocodile to the Culture War velociraptors?
I’d agree with the culture war analysis, but I would disagree that Paglia is an anti-feminist. Such a reading would suggest that feminism isn’t a very broad and often very conflict-ridden creature. Many of those who claim support for her would be appalled by her rapidly pro-sex, pro-choice, pro-porn views etc.
“Isn’t the “attack dog” style of column (and or “blog”) favoured by News Limited really just one almighty troll, designed to garner traffic and thus revenue? And isn’t danah boyd on to something when she argues this phenomenon is much bigger than the internets?”
SPOT ON…this Burchell sounds like a hand puppet. But who is making his mouth move? Perhaps the punch-drunk? Those who dominated the ring…but once some effective political & media-related Southpaws come along they can’t stand up to the heat, except by rigging the match perhaps? Or was it always rigged?
thanks for the posts Kim. they got me thinking about the pamphleteers of 1600’s england, gee they used some nasty language, but i’m not sure that they qualify as trolls as they are defined here.
these trolls remind me most of some of the church sermons that i saw as a kid and some of teh evangelicals i made myself check out when i was in the US. of course the trolls are generally more vulger than anything i ever saw from a pulpit, some of the soapbox speechifiers fit the bill more closely.
I sometimes think that trolling on the inter tubes has a lot to do with the troll’s mourning for Authority. it is as though the troll is so devestated that not everyone genuflects as the feet of their guru that they must up the volume. They also remind me of those desert lizards with the frills that make them look three times larger than they are. you can see some of them up the ante as their arguments get deconstructed.
off the intertubes it is trolling for Authority, be it god, the flying wostershire sause monster or the legacy of Prescott Bush. My mum the Lev Bronstein tragic kept a collection of the lies that Stalin propagated about him for a long time. that is the earliest eg of trolling as Danah Boyd seems to construct it that i can think of, without of course the profit motive, unless you accept the soviet empire as profit enough. it had it all; the constant repatition of ‘facts’, the refferences to shadowy conspiracies, growing stridency, a distinct lack of respect and the construction and refferal to an authority that is unquestionable.
is there a soviet equivalent to Godwin’s law, and have i broken it? a quick google shows nothing.
dylwah @ 11,
Some of the American writers for the lead up to the American Revolution weern’t too bad, either. But then again, some (not all) of them were trying to start a war.
Last December I spent a week in Seattle staying with a well known science blogger friend of mine. One day he was driving me aroundshowing me the sites when he asked, “mick, what lives under a bridge?”. Low and behold we drove under a bridge and there was a big-assed sculpture of a troll by the side of the road.
Apparently I was the first person who had given him the right answer. I wonder why….
Anyway, back on topic. Didn’t journos always engage in troll-like behaviour. I tend to have the point of view that the only difference between opinion piece writers and bloggers is who you know.
Certainly, it seems to be the case that most political commentators in Australia either provide the same level of wiki/google based research as most bloggers or they survive off the scraps of information provided by insiders who want to tactically leak stuff.
I think that one difference is that back in the olden days BC (before choobs), when Op-ed writers were of a mind for trolling, the responses happened over following days on the Letters page — thus reinforcing the self-importance and mediating role of the newspaper.
Was there ever a time that the editorial pages were used just for the impartial and public-minded musings of the good and great, and never sullied by commercial imperatives to get people hot under the collar and coming back for more?
The so called vituperation on the net really is nothing more than a return to the 18c hey-day of journalism.One only has to think of the vast range of insults in the early British and American press of that period.(I wouldn’t be game to post similar comments about pollies on LP. They’d be binned.)
On the positive side, there are some posts worthy of Addison, Steele, Lamb ans other great 18c essayists.
‘My’ take on the matter. I guess it extends to papers, not just computers.
http://www.xkcd.com/438/