The long-haired, chubby, bare-assed
Rubber dolls
Of the sixties
Always got your image
Wrong, though they got
Your height right.
You are small – so small
You need sit on
Two telephone books
To see your screen
And reach the keys.
You never smile,
No matter how you feel.
When you are exultant,
You sneer.
Your victories
Are small,
Like you.
You fire off
A sharp dig
And picture your enemy
Fuming.
You dismiss your distant
Victims like some little general
Sticking pins in maps
Of spots where shells
Will hit. No one
Can see you
Or reach you,
No one can win
Over someone
The truth does not touch.
You don’t care
If your enemy is right,
Or if his words
Would make more sense than yours
If anybody else would listen.
You don’t live in the same world
As the rest of us. You tell wild lies
About the lives
And personalities
Of people
You have never even met,
So they’ll be forced
To correct you with facts
You can then twist against them.
Any information
Is a weapon, even
That which proves you wrong –
It tells you what’s important
To your enemy, what
Else to lie about.
You are a self-appointed
Miniature god
Whose rage
Creates his universe.
You’ll make life hell
For those who break
Your least commandment.
You will rule
This message board!
Looking down
From your “high seat,”
Dizzy with what you think
Is power, not admitting
Even to yourself
That you are lonely
“at the top,” you feel
Your crown
Cut off your circulation,
And mistake it for
A buzz.
Dying alone
Is a small price to pay.
-- © 2010 by Jack Veasey
All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any way without the author's written permission.
How many times I have pictured exactly this nasty troll-person while reading some mean-spirited diatribe on the web. YouTube is FULL of troll-spew in the comments sections. I LIKE this poem!
ReplyDeleteGreat poem, but... to be honest, it sounds like what a troll would call butthurt. Look up 4chan sometime, they speak memespeak there, which is where these terms originate (I think of memespeak as jive talk for the digital generation). "Butthurt" is the name for what a lolcow does when you attack him or her. A lolcow is somebody who responds so much to a troll that the troll can't help himself, he has to keep poking to see how crazy he can make people. See encyclopediadramatica.com
ReplyDeleteNow, I personally would never do this, but I can see why many people find trolling amusing.
A little sympathy for the devil:
First of all, if a troll is doing it right he is breaking the rules of the community he is in, unafraid to step on toes as he questions the status quo. Outsiders to the community usually think it's funny when this kind of thing happens.
For example, in SecondLife a troll shot prim penises at Anshe Chung during an interview. Chung was the first person to make a million dollars in a virtual world. She flipped out so bad she DMCAed the video of the event off the internet for a long time. I only know of one copy still streaming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RedLyae4b2s
This made most "insiders" in SecondLife angry, but it makes most outsiders laugh.
Now, I'm not saying that throwing around derogatory comments and racial slurs is a good thing. That is trolling, but it's not the kind of trolling I'm talking about. I'm talking about the artful troll who can expose certain structures within the medium he is working in. I appreciate that effect when it happens.
Thanks for the new perspective. The lingo is fascinating -- I've never heard any of those terms before. Actually, as a gay guy, I've gotta tell ya "butthurt" evokes a different meaning for me!
ReplyDelete