Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls has been nominated in the category of ” Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Role-Playing Game” in the Dragon awards. Why the Trolls Will Always Win Editors’ Note: This post was first published on Kathy Sierra’s blog Serious. Pony. We are republishing it here unedited and in its entirety with her introductory note at the beginning. I’m not linking it to the blog, and it won’t likely stay up long, but you are welcome to contact me here if you want to put it somewhere else before I take it down. It is long and rambling and unedited and one of the few things I’ve written that I wrote mostly for myself. It is all I ever hope to have to say about it. I thought it was a one- off, then. And it wasn’t really THAT bad. But looking back, it was the canary in the coal mine. And what was that path? We’ll get to that in a minute. Later I learned that the first threat had nothing to do with what I actually made or said in my books, blog posts, articles, and conference presentations. The real problem — as my first harasser described — was that others were beginning to pay attention to me. Sur la une du magazine Time du 29 ao. Ce dessin de troll illustre un long article de Jo Trolls are a very large and monstrous (ranging from between 8 to 10 feet tall), and for the most part unintelligent (references are made about more cunning trolls. The Hemospectrum is the spectrum of blood colors possessed by trolls, which forms part of their caste system, with social and biological implications. A critical look at trolling subculture and how we talk about it bayakpo/funnyjunk.com Last week, Adrian Chen at Gawker published a long profile of infamous Reddit. Editors’ Note: This post was first published on Kathy Sierra’s blog SeriousPony. We are republishing it here unedited and in its entirety with her introductory. The people who relish this online freedom are called trolls, a term that originally came from a fishing method online thieves use to find victims. Tolkien's legendarium, Trolls are large humanoids of great strength and poor intellect. While in Norse mythology, the Troll was a magical creature with. He wrote as if mere exposure to my work was harming his world. Kathy Sierra. About. Kathy Sierra is a writer, thinker, and animal lover. But here’s the key: it turned out he wasn’t outraged about my work. His rage was because, in his mind, my work didn’t deserve the attention. Spoiler alert: “deserve” and “attention” are at the heart. A year later, I wrote a light- hearted article about “haters” (the quotes matter) and something I called The Koolaid Point. It wasn’t about harassment, abuse, or threats against people but about the kind of brand “trolls” you find in, say, Apple discussion forums. My wildly non- scientific theory was this: the most vocal trolling and “hate” for a brand kicks in HARD once a critical mass of brand fans/users are thought to have “drunk the Koolaid”. In other words, the hate wasn’t so much about the product/brand but that other people were falling for it. I was delighted, a few weeks’ later, to see my little “Koolaid Point” in Wired’s Jargon Watch column. The me of 2. 00. 5 had no idea what was coming. Less than two years later, I’d learn that my festive take on harmless brand trolling also applied to people. And it wasn’t festive. I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”, “favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid”. Apparently, that just can’t be allowed. From the hater’s POV, you (the Koolaid server) do not “deserve” that attention. You are “stealing” an audience. From their angry, frustrated point of view, the idea that others listen to you is insanity. From their emotion- fueled view you don’t have readers you have cult followers. That just can’t be allowed. And if they cannot stop you, they can at least ruin your quality of life. A standard goal, in troll culture, I soon learned, is to cause “personal ruin”. They aren’t all trolls, though. Some of those who seek to stop and/or ruin you are misguided/misinformed but well- intended. They actually believe in a cause, and they believe you (or rather the Koolaid you’re serving) threatens that cause. But the Koolaid- Point- driven attacks are usually started by (speculating, educated guess here, not an actual psychologist, etc) sociopaths. They’re doing it out of pure malice, “for the lulz.” And those doing it for the lulz are masters at manipulating public perception. Master trolls can build an online army out of the well- intended, by appealing to The Cause (more on that later). The very best/worst trolls can even make the non- sociopaths believe “for the lulz” is itself a noble cause. But I actually got off easy, then. Most of the master trolls weren’t active on Twitter in 2. Today, they, along with their friends, fans, followers, and a zoo of anonymous sock puppet accounts are. The time from troll- has- an- idea to troll- mobilizes- brutal- assault has shrunk from weeks to minutes. Twitter, for all its good, is a hate amplifier. Twitter boosts signal power with head- snapping speed and strength. Today, Twitter (and this isn’t a complaint about Twitter, it’s about what Twitter enables) is the troll’s best weapon for attacking you. And by “you”, I mean “you the server of Koolaid.” You who must be stopped. It begins with simple threats. You know, rape, dismemberment, the usual. It’s a good place to start, those threats, because you might simply vanish once those threats include your family. But today, many women online — you women who are far braver than I am — you stick around. And now, since you stuck around through the first wave of threats, you are now a much BIGGER problem. Because the Worst Possible Thing has happened: as a result of those attacks, you are NOW serving Victim- Flavored Koolaid. And Victim- Flavored Koolaid is the most dangerous substance on earth, apparently. And that just can’t be allowed. There is only one reliably useful weapon for the trolls to stop the danger you pose and/or to get max lulz: discredit you. The disinformation follows a pattern so predictable today it’s almost dull: first, you obviously “fucked” your way into whatever role enabled your undeserved visibility. Not that there aren’t a few deserving women and why can’t you be more like THEM but no, you are NOT one of them. You are, they claim, CLEARLY “a whore”. But not the sex- worker kind, no, you are the Bad Kind of Whore. Actually TWO kinds: an Attention/Fame Whore and an Actual Have Sex In Exchange For Jobs, Good Reviews, Book Deals Whore. I mean, could there be ANY other explanation for your visibility? But the sex- not- merit meme is just their warm- up, the lowest- hanging- fruit in a discredit/disinfo campaign. Because what the haters MOST want the world to know is this: what you’re serving your audience? It’s NOT EVEN ACTUAL KOOLAID. You’re a “proven liar”. Or, as I was referred to yet again just yesterday by my favorite troll/hater/harasser: “a charlatan”. And there is “evidence”. There is always “evidence”. The most damaging troll/haters are some of the most powerful people (though they self- describe as outcasts). Typically, the hacker trolls are technically- talented, super smart white men. They’re not just hackers. They are social engineers. They understand behavioral psych. They know their Kahneman. They exploit a vulnerability in the brains of your current and potential listeners. How? By unleashing a mind virus guaranteed to push emotional buttons for your real, NOT- troll audience. In my specific case, it was my alleged threat to a free and open internet. Weev’s explanation was just one more leveling up in my discredit/disinfo program: DMCA takedowns. I had, apparently, issued DMCA takedowns. If you are in the tech world, issuing a DMCA takedown is worse than kicking puppies off a pier. It was (according to the meme) much much worse. I did it (apparently) to stifle criticism. If a DMCA takedown is kicking puppies, doing it to “stifle criticism” is like single- handedly causing the extinction of puppies, kittens, and the constitution. Behold my awesome and terrible power. Go me. But here’s the thing. I never did anything even a teeny tiny nano bit like that. But sure enough, even on my last day on Twitter, there it was again: Kathy did DMCA’s. And it wasn’t even a troll saying it, it was another woman in tech who believed the meme because she believed weev. Because in twisted troll logic, it makes sense. She must have done something pretty awful to deserve what, according to weev, “she had coming.”After the GQ story came out, the one where weev “justified” the harassment of me by introducing the DMCA fiction, I asked him about it on Twitter. Because it didn’t happen. He’s already launched the Kathy- does- DMCA- takedowns meme. Evidence not required. For that matter, common sense not required.(For the record, far as most people have been able to determine, most of what happened to me long ago was triggered by a blog comment I made that said “I’m not moderating my blog comments, but I support those who do and here’s why.” That’s right, Blog. Just a tiny hop, really, from that to full- blown DMCA takedowns. Easy mistake.)For me, the hot button to rally the army (including the Good People) against me was my (totally fictional) legal threat to freedom. But there are so many other hot buttons to use against women in tech. Many. A particularly robust troll- crafted hot button meme today is that some women are out to destroy video games (shoutout to #gamergaters). Another is that they are taking jobs from men. Men who are, I mean obviously, more deserving. There’s no such thing as an oppressed group I just meant Professional Victims Who Pretend To Be Oppressed And Serve Social Justice Warrior Koolaid.”Life for women in tech, today, is often better the less visible they are. Less visible means fewer perceived Koolaid drinkers. The Game Is Fixed. I’m not sure I like comparing trolls to animals (because insulting to animals), but as an animal trainer, I’m painfully aware of the power of operant conditioning. Yes, sure, “don’t feed the trolls” has been the standard advice, a bullshit talking point propagated by trolls to blame their targets. Don’t engage.” Except that’s not actually true. It’s the opposite of true, once you’ve been personally targeted. As any parent of a two- year old can tell you, ignoring the child usually leads to escalation. Cry harder, scream louder, and in the most desperate scenarios, become destructive. Anything to get the attention they crave. Simply moving on is not an option for the haters once you’ve been labeled a Koolaid server and/or a rich source of lulz. Ignore them, and the trolls cry harder, scream louder, and become destructive. If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Piont, you usually have just three choices: 1. They Win). That’s right, in the world we’ve created, once you’ve become a Koolaid- point target they always win. Your life will never be the same, and the harassers will drain your scarce cognitive resources. You and your family will never be the same.
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