I see a fair amount of talk about trolling these days. Mostly in discussion forums. Mostly about people with differing political views. According to people on the right, everyone on the left is a troll. According to some on the left, everyone on the right is a troll.
Partisan Realism. The belief that only your side is real. Nobody with political beliefs different than your own exists. And mind you, partisan realism exists at various scales of the word “different”. While to a qanon trumpling, it may seem obvious that everyone further left than Mussolini is a paid lizard-person shill, the more common liberal view is that liberal and right exist, but left doesn’t. Plurality? Fake. Otherkin? Made up by the right. They barely accept the existence of nonbinary people, and even so only half the time.
It was pointed out to Me once that the rise of Trumpism has meant a break in our cultural reality. At the time, it was thought this may lead to a surge in soulism. Certainly there has been more radicalisation, but I remain doubtful. It seems to Me that a new order of reality has emerged, the order of Partisan Realism. A reality excluding all those different from not just power, not just goodness, but realness.
I find it interesting that Trumpism has created this divide, when Trumpism is also what seems to have killed off the trolls. In 2011, you could find edgy teenagers posting swastikas on 4chan because they think fascism is funny. Now if you go there, you’ll find edgy 20s-ers posting swastikas because they think Hitler was right. A consequence, it would seem, of Gamergate, and the rise of open fascism among the 4chan demographic.
The trolls are dead, because they turned into honest people. Honest, evil people. It stopped being fun and games. They pretended to be nazis, and they became nazis. Those who weren’t, left.
Everyone’s serious about politics these days. And this may be naivete born of age, but it seems they simultaneously take everyone else less seriously. Anyone who disrupts the status quo is a “troll”. The word has almost taken on a new meaning, now defined as “a bad person”. But, etymology can’t be discarded so easily. For a long time yet, the word will carry an implication of nonseriousness. That it’s a joke. That they’re just doing it for attention. The fact that the two definitions are mixed so freely is a trend I find uncomfortable.
For the record, I am of the opinion that Ken M is the greatest troll in the world. I think Ken M is a force for good. He takes the impotent rage of angry fools, and turns it into a source of joy for millions of people. He seems to be of either a dying breed, or one that was never so popular to begin with. Whatever the case, he brings to mind nostalgia for simpler times.
It’s a stark contrast to the modern political landscape, where trolls are universally hated. How can it be that the most famous example of the category is at the same time universally loved? What is the cause of this dissonance?
Let’s investigate.
A troll intentionally upsets other people. Thus, trolling is violence. A troll is a person who makes a habit of violence. Culturally, we believe violence is bad. But violence leveled against angry fools is considered good. This explains Ken M. And the unique hatred of trolls, the way the accusation can shut down a conversation by rallying opposition? Well, nobody wants to be the butt of a joke. And mocking a good cause, mocking vulnerable people, punching down, invites well-earned hatred.
But I want to flip this narrative on its head. I want to look at things differently. And I have noticed that intentionally upsetting other people describes another thing.
Protest.
The difference between trolling and protest, traditionally speaking, is whether you tell the truth. But we live in a post-truth world. A world of partisan realism. A world inhabited by qanon trumplings who think that the vaccine is a receiver for homosexual 5G waves and anyone who says differently is working for Lizard Pope Obama.
To the reactionary, there is no difference between protest and trolling when either is done by the left. And to liberals who cannot fathom that the trumpling takes their views seriously, there is no difference between protest and trolling when either is done by the right.
That’s the problem! That’s why so many people are being called trolls! It’s good old Partisan Realism cocking up yet more of our ability to discern fact from fiction.
I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from this. From accusing people with views different than yours of misrepresenting their views. Maybe there’s something to be gained by calling the leaders of the neo nazi movement grifters, because when you do that, you’re trying to signal to their followers that there’s consequences for them. But who cares if the followers really believe what they say? They’re still going to say it. If a man is shouting Heil Hitler on a street corner and selling red armbands, it doesn’t help to say “You don’t really believe in that”. Does it? People are still going to hear it, still going to be persuaded. What’s the endgame? Do you want Me to believe that the entire Trump administration is a big practical joke and all those pregnant teenagers weren’t really murdered? Nah, fuck off with that.
I do see a benefit to the enemy, though. It’s a thought terminating cliche. You see, if you stick your fingers in your ears and go “LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING” and convince everyone on your side to do the same, you won’t have to seriously consider ideas different than yours.
And that benefit to the enemy persists even in cases of friendly fire among the liberal left.
You see, more than a decade ago, some transphobic asshole made fun of trans people by pretending to be an otherkin. A troll for sure. But do you know what the troll actually accomplished? He accomplished a great victory. He turned many liberals to his cause and made them fire on the left. Because you see, there really are otherkin out there. And for the last 10 years, liberals have been treating every single otherkin as a transphobic troll. Even the ones who believe otherkin are real still say “Better not give the transphobes fuel against us”. Fuck off with that shite!
A single right wing troll managed to turn millions of trans allies into bigoted oppressors of marginalised identities. And they didn’t even realise it.
You see, I think maybe the trolls went extinct because they won. The right wing ones, anyway. They converted to fascism, and as fascists, they didn’t have to troll the left for very long in order to create a culture of paranoid fear and violence. The liberals are all scared of right wing trolls, and they’re willing to attack anyone who thinks different than them as a supposed troll. The right wing trolls successfully created enough paranoia to shift the overton window inwards, and stop it from moving left. They created partisan realism. And look how well it’s served them! The liberals are disinclined to think the right is real, and they utterly refuse to believe the left is real. Total political apathy through self-enforced ignorance. Best victory the fascists could have ever won.
I think we need to get rid of partisan realism, because it’s deadly dangerous. And doing so is going to require accepting that maybe, just maybe, the trolls are gone. Ken M is a dying breed. The right didn’t just give up on trolling because they got serious. They also gave up on trolling because it isn’t needed anymore. We need to give up on our fear, too, if we’re ever going to accept views that we haven’t heard of before. There’s no future in the alternative. That way lies a slow, stagnant, apathetic death.
