How Trolling Relates to Online Dating
According to Phillips, “A troll is a person who likes to disrupt stupid conversations on the Internet. They have two basic rules: nothing should be taken seriously, and if it exists, there is porn of it.” Trolling is a culture that is widespread across the internet, and sometimes it’s even hard to differentiate between trolling and cyberbullying. I believe that this similarity implicitly relates to my research project.
In her reading, Phillips also focused on the anonymity of trolls. For example, “Most obviously, anonymity allows trolls to engage in behaviors they would never replicate in professional or otherwise public settings, either because the specific behaviors would be considered socially unacceptable, or because the trolls’ online persona would clash with their offline circumstances.” This aspect of trolling is something that is dangerously close to the act of cyber bullying. Individuals take part in cyber bullying because they can do it anonymously, and because their behaviors would be considered socially unacceptable.
One research question that I am trying to focus on is what divides the Muslim community. When dating is so taboo, what drives people to take part in online dating? One thing I have discovered in my research so far is the existence of not only a multitude of Muslim dating apps, but a large variety of dating options within them. For example, there are Muslim dating apps that target specific ethnicities. There are also dating apps that target different sexualities, like the LGBT Muslim communities.
Something that I have noticed growing up in a Muslim community is the quickness to judge another person. This is something that mostly exists in older generations, but it does end up being taught to children who start believing the same things. I believe that online trolling is a factor in the divide of Muslim communities today, to the point where people resort to dating apps because they fear being bullied. In this case, trolling becomes an act of cyber bullying that targets specific communities. The result of this can often push people to finding online communities like themselves. In this case, that would be a Muslim Dating apps for the LGBT community.
