I caught 10 minutes of a documentary tonight about trolling and thought about starting a thread on here. When did troll become synonymous with online abuse. I started using the internet in the mid to late nineties when it was kind of taking off for private use. Back then trolls were jokers who hung around message boards taking the mick. A good troll (and they were rare) was a great asset to an online community. Give us our bloody word back!
i think it started around the same time people started taping things to lighters and calling it a "hack".
tbh methinks it's going to be shorter lived than people think, we're stuck now with the generation some folk like to call ********** who have had the internet from a young age, but with parents who are clueless about it (in terms of the general populace at least).
people who aren't old enough to remember before the internet was a big deal in everyday life (and hence can't make the distinction that what random idiots say isn't important), but who also don't have the ability to draw on their parents experience teach them.
generations being born now and later to parents who have had extensive internet experience aren't going to be nearly as susceptible, it's a bit like the early days of radio drama and people going crazy when they turned on half-way into war of the worlds or somesuch and genuinely thought martians were invading because they didn't realise it was just a story.
