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Etymology The contemporary use of the term first appeared on Usenet groups in the late 1980s. It is widely thought to be a contraction of the phrase trolling for suckers, itself derived from the sport fishing technique of trolling. The latter can be compared with trawling. The word likely gained currency because of its apt second meaning, drawn from the trolls portrayed in Scandinavian folklore and children's tales; they are often ugly, obnoxious creatures bent on mischief and wickedness. The image of the troll under the bridge in the "Three Billy Goats Gruff" emphasizes the troll's negative reaction to outsiders intruding on its physical environment, particularly those who intend to graze in its domain without permission. The word occurs also in Thomas Awdeley’s Fraternity of Vagabonds (1561) in the form: "Troll and Troll by is he that setteth naught by no man, nor no man by him. This is he that would bear rule in a place and hath no authority nor thanks, and at last is thrust out of the door like a knave." It seems a singularly apt description, though no provenance has ever been demonstrated to connect it with the modern usage. The origin of the phrase has been discussed in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court (eBay v. MercExchange, 29 March 2006): JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, is -- is the troll the scary thing under the bridge, or is it a fishing technique?... MR. PHILLIPS : For my clients, it's been the scary thing under the bridge....
JUSTICE KENNEDY: I mean, is that what the troll is?
MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, I believe that's... what it is, although...maybe we should think of it more as Orcs, now that we have a new generation.
Pre-history
Prior to DejaNews's archiving of Usenet, accounts of trolling were sketchy, there being little evidence to sort through. After that time, however, the huge archives were available for researchers. Perhaps the earliest, although poorly documented, case is the 1982-83 saga of Alex and Joan from the CompuServe forums. Van Gelder, a reporter for Ms. magazine, documented the incident in 1996 in an article for her publication. Alex (in real life a very shy 50 year old psychiatrist from New York) pretended to be a highly bombastic, anti-religious, post-car-accident, wheelchair-bound, mute woman named "Joan", "in order to better relate to his female patients". This went on for two years, and "Joan" had become a hugely detailed character, with an array of emotional relationships. These only began to fall apart after "Joan" coaxed an online friend of hers into an affair with Alex.
Even those who barely knew Joan felt implicated — and somehow betrayed — by Alex's deception. Many of us on-line like to believe that we're a utopian community of the future, and Alex's experiment proved to us all that technology is no shield against deceit. We lost our innocence, if not our faith. (Van Gelder, 1996, p.534)
Trolling in the 1990s
One early reference to troll found in the Google Usenet archive was by user "Mark Miller", directed toward the user "Tad", on February 8, 1990.<1> However, it is unclear if this instance represents a usage of "troll" as it is known today, or if it was simply a chance choice of epithet:
You are so far beyond being able to understand anything anyone here says that this is just converging on uselessness. The really sad part is that you really believe that you're winning. You are a shocking waste of natural resources — kindly re-integrate yourself into the food-chain. Just go die in your sleep you mindless flatulent troll.
The more likely derivation can be found in the phrase "trolling for newbies", popularized in the early 1990s in the Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban. Commonly, what is meant is a relatively gentle inside joke by veteran users, presenting questions or topics that had been so overdone; only a new user would respond to them earnestly. For example, a veteran of the group might make a post on the common misconception that glass flows over time. Long-time readers would both recognize the poster's name and know that the topic had been done to death already, but new subscribers to the group would not "get it" and respond. These types of trolls served as a Shibboleth to identify group insiders. By the late 1990s, alt.folklore.urban had such heavy traffic and participation that trolling of this sort was frowned upon. Others expanded the term to include the practice of playing a seriously misinformed or deluded user, even in newsgroups where one was not a regular; these were often attempts at humor rather than provocation. In such contexts, the noun troll usually referred to an act of trolling, rather than to the author.
Recently, the word troll is also frequently used as a synonym for flamebait, even though the two words have distinct meanings. |
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