The Psychology of Trolling

In the last 25 years life of the Internet, online abuse, online bullying, online hate and extreme criticism to others has grown explosively.

Tens of thousands of youngsters all over the world have turned to suicide and ended their lives over online bullying and verbal abuse and most of this in the form of text, keystrokes in message forums and on social media.

This form of abuse and online bullying when someone attacks another is commonly called trolling or abuse by trolls.

Let’s take simple message forums for example and pick any subject at random out of the air, any subject such as gardening, sewing or tapestry, martial arts, car restoration, artistic subjects, carpentry, cooking, fitness and so on.

Select any subject and go into any message forum or community and you will see people at the bare minimum criticising others for what appears to be absolutely no reason or miniscule petty reasons.

Insulting, disrespecting and criticising others because of something they said and did or made or even positively and successfully achieved.

It appears that if anyone has ability, a skill in the form of a creation or an expression or if they built or designed something then that achievement or skill appears to affect another person’s mindset negatively to the point where they need to hurt them verbally, attack them with criticism or insults and this is keeping it mild.

It seems that the skills and abilities, knowledge expertise or even genius of a person in many ways demotes or reduces another’s self-worth, self-esteem, well-being, adequacy and own capabilities which centres around how they would do it or should have done it whether it be a tangible materialistic item, an opinion or a belief, a viewpoint or even a tutorial or advice given on any subject.

Let’s break this down into a positive achievement or success for example, then that success will evoke or arouse another person’s inadequacy in them and it can be just as simple as that, enough to fire off an explosive bombardment of insulting criticisms backlash of harsh words at the other person.

Without the usual psychobabble, a simple view might be that they are jealous and just that alone is enough to produce a negative, critical or vindictive response which always has one goal in mind and that is to reduce or belittle the other persons worth and well-being, to lower them down, to diminish or reduce their esteem or default feelings of accomplishment, achievement and knowledge in that particular field or whichever it is.

One person says or does something good and another person wants to attack them for it because it affects them.

We see this all the time in completely normal and healthy situations surrounded by logic, common sense and reason and then someone comes along and expresses huge amounts of criticism and hatred or anger to that person or the field for it.

In extreme cases a person can threaten another to call at their home and suggesting violence towards them especially if the other person reacts back to their nasty criticism in self defence and then things move to another level of to-ing and fro-ing of words, a keyboard punch-up takes place where one person’s words are thrown back to belittle, intimidate, humiliate the other to wind them up especially when the hater or troll sees vulnerability such as sensitivity in that person and then abuses that person even more.

To interpret this, things can be boiled down to . . . you did well, and that makes me feel bad or less than what I am (inadequacy) so now I want you to feel bad in yourself because I will feel better if I hurt you especially if I know you’re hurting or if I know that you’re feeling intimidated, threatened or even worried so that will make me feel better. You did well, I don’t like it, it’s affecting me, so I want to hurt and verbally attack you so you feel, the hurt I am feeling.

You don’t need a degree in psychology to see this. Isn’t this so?

The people who do this are unknowingly ((((projecting)))).

Projecting is expressing and discharging the effects they are unconsciously carrying in the way of hurt, intimidation, humiliation, such as their past bullied or hurt experiences, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of worthlessness – to be dumped onto the other person – so that they feel it and when the attacker perceives or receives the feedback that their victim is affected, usually through their defensive reactions then they may feel satisfied and fulfilled and this is one of the reasons why people do this, it is one of the reasons why people hurt others especially for no apparent reason because it stimulates and satisfies them.

People are carrying the unconscious and unresolved ‘effects’ of their past experiences with others and then seeing another person’s success or achievement evokes a need for the troll to dump them hurt and inadequate feelings (affects) onto them.

It’s super simple once you understand this.

The more someone unjustifiably bullies another person, picks on another for no real reason then they are projecting or discharging their own un-dealt with negative feelings that they live with onto that person to make them feel the same.

This goes on everywhere in all walks of life and everybody has done it to some extent. Have you never made someone feel uncomfortable or hurt them because you felt like it, because you wanted them feel some pain which can be intimidation, fear or anxiety and all because you felt negative or wanted to get them back for some slight against you.

Every single human being on the planet has done this in their life.

Obviously we all react to others behaviours and cause distress and pain emotionally and mentally and we often do it as a back bite or in retaliation.

This may be understood well and be justified but we also do it for very little reason just because we’re feeling negative, but when people have the luxury of being anonymous and hiding behind a computer or smart phone screen then they can express to the full extent how much hate and anger they are carrying towards others and whilst there may be no psychopathy in that person, they’re just being downright nasty or negative because it’s making them feel better in themselves without any understanding of why they’re doing it. Due to what’s in them people cause harm and damage to others which can be extremely psychologically disturbing and even lead to suicide or ongoing long-term mental health issues and self-harm especially in youngsters and it’s getting worse!

What is it troll?

A troll is a label to describe a negative and hateful person that uses harmful wording to cause an effect in another person online.

The troll is someone who usually tears into someone with carefully chosen words to criticise and abuse another to put that person down in themselves by whatever means necessary to make them feel affected and in doing so the troll is elevated within themselves to feel better.

Whichever way this is described it boils down to the same thing, the troll, the hater, the bully is hurting you to make them feel better.

How vile is that?

A person needs to destroy the well-being, mental stability and esteem of another person to feel better in them or to experience a momentary buzz or thrill in gaining a reaction of the hurt, abused or bullied kind.

Trolling can be in person but mainly online, message forums, online communities especially in texts and in smart phone apps.

Trolls mainly remain anonymous and will hide their IP address or use different aliases, accounts and throwaway telephone numbers/Sims. Anyone can be a troll such as a friend or colleague or partner but most are unknown but commonly something triggered off the troll to attack that person.

A troll picks a target or a victim consciously or just at random to discharge their feelings of anger, hurt, rage, confusions and fear and ultimately brings their target to start questioning their own self-worth and actions as to why they are being treated this way. What did I do? Racking their brains to find a cause, questioning their own recent actions over and over!

The troll’s actions and behaviour is driven by many things including the logical and illogical, conscious and unconscious reasons.

Trolling has got so bad now to the point where 8, 9 and 10-year-old children have developed manipulative and highly developed critical behavioural cyber bullying skills which can lead other children to become paranoid and fearful of going online and often they publicly express their concerns and feelings to others out of worry and anxiety and the troll’s immediately pick up on their effect which confirms the troll’s success therefore leading to more deepening of the effect which in turn psychologically, emotionally and mentally feeds and stimulates, satisfies them on many levels and in many ways for many reasons – to make them feel better.

Emotional, mental and psychological damage is at the base or the root cause of why people do this to others and the luxury of anonymity online makes this a perfect breeding ground for the hater!

How to deal with trolls?

Many people will say after years of experience with trolls the ultimate way of dealing with the troll is the simplest way and that is to not deal with them. In other words never, ever, ever, ever react or respond to anything they say or do unless it’s illegal or threatening and of course it goes without saying you block them wherever possible and keep screenshots as proof of their comments, threats and behaviour possibly for later use.

If you’re a child then you may be required to report it to a teacher or parent or the social media platform you are on.

If you can’t block the person in question then never react or respond to them as this shows your level of control and emotional maturity by non-reaction.

Empty vessels make more noise

Weak and inadequate people make themselves strong by making loud noises with boasts, brags, belittling and threats to others but what lies behind all their aggression is fear. The more someone boasts, rages and threatens, rants and raves especially over a perceived nothing then the more their inadequacy and unconscious issues are driving it and surfacing.

They are in fact publicly and openly advertising their own fears, insecurities and inadequacy by making themselves powerful looking, dominant and strong to others by whatever means, they will do it.

Drugs and alcohol usage will only make this worse!

Remember this, if you are affected by trolls.

You can be 100% sure of this. A troll is not a peaceful, calm, respectful, compassionate, empathetic, graceful or in control person. They are hurting and it is making them have negative feelings in themselves about themselves every day and by hurting you dare discharging the negativity, hurt and pain.

The troll may demonstrate some of these things at some time but the bottom line is a troll is a troubled person with aspects of chaotic disorder of emotion and inability to handle and channel their own feelings, hatred, inadequacies and fears and ultimately psychological and emotional insecurity and disturbance.

Roughly speaking, what a troll does to you, somewhere along the lines in their past or their timeline, those feelings or effects they have created in you have developed in them. In other words, the troll is doing to you what was done to them.

It’s not the bad troublesome or negative life experiences we have had, it is the incorrect and faulty unconscious beliefs that develop and come off our past experiences that gets stored up in our memory banks and then those unconscious beliefs form or drive unconscious patterns and programs that need to surface and shape our conscious behaviour.

Being kind and respectful to the troll without reacting will eventually drive them away because they will start to feel a lack of power or effectiveness and stimulation within them when they try it on with you.

It may take time and in most cases they will leave you alone when they don’t get a reaction from you because feelings of powerlessness and ineffectiveness will turn them off and it will be your non-reactive, non-responding self-control that can make that happen. It will take time and they will move on to someone else more vulnerable, easily suggestible and easily susceptible to critical and damning comments and you can take this rough generalisation literally has 100% accurate.

Have you ever been in an argument and the other person won’t react or the other person is smiling and calm and it starts to affect you so you escalate the argument and it becomes messy and then hours later you’re the one having to apologise. Staying calm and non-reactive takes the wind out of the others sails and will leave you to some extent feeling powerless.

Others criticism, hate and abuse onto you is a converted form of their own trapped un-dealt with internal pain that comes and goes within them. By trolling you they have found a pathway of release by hurting others and receiving your reactions.

Sometimes you might not even know what it is you have done or are doing but it could just have been a simple little thing that means nothing to the rest of us but fired up that person from a trigger point!

Often it is your reaction that feeds them and what drives them on to repeat it over and over. Don’t react!

Disclaimer

This article is for educational and informational purposes only and must not be used or taken as a substitute in any form for any medical, psychological (mental) advice, medication you are currently taking or any alternative treatments without the prior advice, guidance and consent from your medical doctor. Please speak with your doctor first before making any changes to your diet or medicine as a result of reading any information laid out on this website or in this or any other articles.

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