Trolling on Twitter; where insensitivity is at it’s finest
In today’s technological age, there are a great deal of online communities, in the ever expanding sea known as the internet. Just like physical communities, online communities can go through tragedies and disasters. In actuality, we probably see it far more times than not, especially on social media sites. As many know, when news of a tragedy breaks, it’s usually posted on a social media site, such as Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and more. Unfortunately, many times we also see one of the challenges of having online communities; trolling. In her book, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture,” A Whitney Phillips shows us an area where trolling constantly takes place. She states, “it should be recognized that public disasters are media triumphs. They are what makes the news.” In this, she is emphasizing how tragedies are often used as avenues for trolling to take place.
We see this very thing, in a situation that took place on Twitter within the last couple of weeks. The memorial of Emmett Till was destroyed, and the information regarding his death was removed. This was seen as a tragedy not only by those in the immediate community where it took place in Mississippi, but by many in the online community of Twitter. However, as if right on time, a troll appeared among the comments in post.
Many of those who responded to the trolls comments more than likely felt as though the situation was being more so trivialized than just simply misunderstood. Trivializing the seriousness of a tragedy among others is one of the many things trolls seem to specialize in. The example is even seen in Phillips book when she talks about the Facebook memorial page. Our troll here is even called a troll at one point for his crude and insensitive comments. For many in this online community, this kind troll, which is not uncommon, paints a picture that the feeling of oppression they feel is not a big deal and is something they should just get over.
