This morning, I was talking to Mike on GTalk. I recommended a book to him and he couldn’t believe it. “Are you trolling?” he asked suspiciously. “You’re trolling, aren’t you.” I sat at my screen like this O_______O and then he added, “you always troll me.” No, I wasn’t trolling him. I had no reason to be trolling him. Beware, LOG COPYPASTA after the jump. So why don’t you kill me.

I recently finished writing what I thought was a fairly lulz post. It contained graphs, it contained invectives, it contained a loli fox. Positively pleased with myself, I pinged my darling kouhai-kun Owen.

Following this conversation are my thoughts on trolling.

9:35:08 AM lolikitsune: hey
9:35:10 AM lolikitsune: i made myself a mascot
9:36:42 AM Owen: gj
9:37:13 AM lolikitsune: :D
10:30:00 AM lolikitsune: http://not.dotq.org/?p=289

While not exactly a win, the conversation hadn’t gotten off to a terrible start. Owen’s usual bored-sounding “gj” was, as usual, easy to dismiss.

10:51:53 AM Owen: you’re.. post whoring a worthless post

Captain Obvious here thinks that it’s breaking news or some shit that the average post on notdotq is worthless.

10:51:59 AM lolikitsune: :o
10:52:03 AM lolikitsune: all my posts are worthless
10:52:06 AM lolikitsune: what do you expect

Captain Obvious #2 explains this.

10:52:20 AM Owen: p.s. I will not take you seriously until you not take mike seriously
10:52:23 AM Owen: bai

Needless hate. I mean, we all hate on Mike a little (c’mon, dubs = slavery!) but uh, this comment came straight out of left field and had nothing to do with the post in question, in which I had made fun of Mike. Taking him seriously? I do that sometimes, mostly in direct conversation, but notdotq takes close to nothing seriously. The list is short, at least: Aria, and this post I’m writing right now.

10:53:03 AM lolikitsune: p.s. you are a mean asshole, don’t hate, we can all be friends, etc.
10:53:05 AM lolikitsune: seriously
10:53:12 AM lolikitsune: like, seriously seriously
10:53:13 AM lolikitsune: please
10:53:21 AM lolikitsune: don’t be such a fucktard :(

In classic immature lolikit style, I bitch and moan.

10:55:04 AM Owen: wait
10:55:06 AM Owen: let me summarise

At this point, I roll my eyes. Owen is going into his self-righteous “I am more intelligent than you are” mode and, while usually this mode amuses me, I am not in the right mood for it.

10:55:23 AM Owen: a) you are failing massively, not mike pretentious levels, but Drm CRAZY RETARD levels of failure

Drm is another buddy of mine, Owen. He’s a good guy and he’s nice and he’s funny. Unlike your asshattery—you’re not making anyone laugh when you send me IMs like this. This is important, and I will get back to it after I’m done dissecting the conversation.

10:55:34 AM Owen: b) you are confusing what I write on my blog with what I say to you on IRC

Until this point, no one has mentioned Owen’s blog.

10:55:49 AM Owen: c) i.e., you are mixing your personal life with your blogging one

Neither my interactions with other anibloggers nor my aniblogging is at all related to my personal life. My aniblogging, on the other hand, is interaction with anibloggers. I still don’t see where Owen’s blog is playing into all this, and that makes the “i.e.” even more mystifying: what are you trying to say, Owen? And why don’t you just say it?

10:56:05 AM Owen: d) my last BLOG post was a huge success, if comments are anything to go by

Again with Owen’s blog. I have no idea why he’s bringing it up. Still. There’s the possibility that he’s flaunting e-penor but there’s no reason for him to be doing so.

10:56:24 AM Owen: e) I randomly insult you on IRC like I do everyone else because I’m bored

Yes. This is true. And? It seems like a string of non-sequiturs. Owen tells me later to use my brain and figure things out, and I consider myself decent at that, but I can’t make anything out of his comment here. We’re not talking about IRC. We’re not talking about Owen’s blog. We’re talking about a post I made that Owen called worthless, and we’re talking about my visceral reaction to his latest slur on Mike.

10:56:38 AM Owen: f) confusing my IRC behaviour for blogging is a failure on the mike level

Apparently Owen is failing “on the mike level” because not only was he the one who brought up his IRC behavior—and not only was he the one who brought up his blogging behavior—but he was the one who assumed they had been confused. Were lolikit Owen and Mike lolikit, Mike would tell lolikit to stop projecting.

10:56:52 AM lolikitsune: and uh, when did i say anything about your blog?

I can take this nonsense no longer, and call him on it.

10:56:58 AM Owen: g) bringing this personal grudge/QQ/True_Tears thing to a blog post is a failure on the Drm level

He keeps right on going, insulting Drm again and this time mentioning something about a personal grudge. Grudge? Grudge? I’m lost.

10:57:07 AM Owen: sorry
10:57:15 AM Owen: there is nothing whatsoever in that post that indicates otherwise

My “brain” has told me that these lines are meant to answer my, “when did I say anything about your blog?” There’s no other reason for him to say sorry (if he’s flaming the shit out of me, he’s flaming the shit out of me). If I’m correct, then his answer is ambiguous at best and terribly worded at worst. And, English aside, “that post” (my post) says nothing about Owen’s blog.

10:57:46 AM Owen: in other words, I see how mixing with mike and Drm has… strengthened your intellect in ways I would have never thought possible!

Beautiful sarcasm.

10:58:01 AM lolikitsune: thanks for that, but

Beautiful Sarcasm.

10:58:12 AM lolikitsune: you’re totally conflating what i said
10:58:17 AM Owen: continue to be on the defensive

I point out that Owen has no idea what he’s talking about. He tries to push buttons. It’s almost as if he’s… trolling.

10:59:12 AM lolikitsune: can i ask for some clarification?
10:59:23 AM Owen: nein
10:59:26 AM lolikitsune: ok then…
10:59:29 AM Owen: go use that thing between your ears and behind your eyes
10:59:31 AM Owen: I need sleep

After giving it some thought, I decide not to reply directly but to see if he’d be willing to clarify something for me (specifically, how his blog came into the picture). He says no and then tells me to use my brain. I’ve been using it, I want to shout. I’ve been using it and it can’t decipher your bullshit.

10:59:39 AM Owen: I hope to wake up to non-failure lk
10:59:41 AM lolikitsune: …
10:59:43 AM lolikitsune: Owen
10:59:59 AM lolikitsune: there’s never been a moment when you’ve thought of me as non-failure, but this isn’t about me, it’s about mike

I try to bring him back on-topic because he’s so far gone in his realm of IRC, blogging, and sleep that he seems to have forgotten what the topic is. This uh, this doesn’t work too well.

11:00:06 AM Owen: no
11:00:07 AM lolikitsune: i don’t know how your blog got dragged into the picture by you
11:00:08 AM lolikitsune: but
11:00:11 AM lolikitsune: all i’m saying is
11:00:12 AM lolikitsune: be nicer
11:00:17 AM Owen: in case you haven’t noticed
11:00:19 AM lolikitsune: don’t call people shit for chilling with friendlies
11:00:33 AM Owen: your writing fails so badly that you don’t even bother to elaborate on what you just told me!

And here’s some classic throwback to Arjuna. He talks at me. I talk at him. My words don’t reach him and his don’t reach me. In a last-ditch attempt at objectivity, I won’t try to call any shots on who’s right or wrong here, or on why one or the other of us doesn’t understand what’s being said by the other. Just uh, I don’t understand what he said, or why he said it, or how he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

11:00:36 AM lolikitsune: this isn’t irc, this isn’t a good forum for trolling

I’ll get back to this after I’m done dissecting the conversation.

11:00:39 AM Owen: please go and fix your post and I will be happier
11:00:48 AM lolikitsune: what/1
11:00:52 AM lolikitsune: fix my post? fix it how
11:01:03 AM Owen: by making it clear you’re talking about the person and not the blog
11:01:05 AM Owen: because hey guess what
11:01:10 AM lolikitsune: what the fuck is wrong with it, it’s standard notdotq—
11:01:14 AM Owen: all of the people you mentioned in your post have anime blogs

No, I never would have guessed that the people mentioned in a blogpost on a meta-aniblog were anibloggers! Also, because “all” the people mentioned are anibloggers, I have no idea who Owen’s talking about! It could be DS, it could be CJ, it could be Author, it could be Baka-Raptor, it could be Mike, it could be me… or it could be Owen.

Lightbulb! or something.

So in my post, I said something about his blogging behavior which was fail and incorrect. But wait… not only was there not a single link to Owen’s blog in my post, but the post wasn’t even tagged Cruel Angel Theses! Moreover, he’s a renowned IRC troll, and he trolls the notdotq comments: this is Owen the person, very clearly. So I’m back to the drawing board with figuring out how and why Owen’s blog behavior/success figures into anything

11:01:26 AM Owen: anyway good job, good job, I see mike is doing a fine piece of art with you
11:01:53 AM Owen: obviously the so-called legend of intellectual osmosis is a myth

More insults from the internet hate machine.

11:01:56 AM lolikitsune: oh. oh. so
11:01:58 AM Owen: *isn’t
11:02:02 AM lolikitsune: you’re worried
11:02:06 AM Owen: no
11:02:06 AM lolikitsune: that people reading my post
11:02:11 AM lolikitsune: will think that i think
11:02:12 AM Owen: I think that was a shit post on mike levels
11:02:14 AM lolikitsune: that your blog is full of trolling
11:02:15 AM Owen: that is all
11:02:26 AM Owen: no
11:02:31 AM Owen: it’s just mike-wankery.
11:02:35 AM Owen: but carry on LOL

I pose my line of reasoning to Owen and he dismisses it, telling me that my post sucks like Mike. Flattering to all involved no doubt.

11:02:46 AM lolikitsune: Owen, it’s exactly the same as any other post on notdotq in which i have graphs
11:02:59 AM lolikitsune: nothing more nothing less
11:03:02 AM Owen: continue telling yourself that
11:03:11 AM lolikitsune: …
11:03:44 AM Owen: please stop replying to me, I’m going to bed for much needed sleep

The post in question really is standard notdotq fare: I ring up some stupid wannabe-internet-drama premise, post some graphs, insult some people, and then close up shop with an attack on Mike. Nothing to see here, folks. And yet. Owen thinks—it really is sub-par? It really is “Mike level” ? (And that’s not to say that Mike is a bad anime blogger. I’m making no such assertions at the moment. But in Owen’s eyes, Mike is crap, and he’s comparing the post to that—thus, insulting my post.)

11:03:49 AM lolikitsune: oooookay, one question before i just stop talking to you: are you being an ass liek on irc, or are you being serious?

At this point, Owen seems to just be running off his mouth with no real purpose. Kind of like in IRC. Kind of like when he’s trolling, yeah? So I pose a question that needs answering. So I pose the question, and Owen? Owen doesn’t answer it. He goes off, to bed. Or something.

One thing I’ve learned to do in analyzing things is to look at one possible path and follow it all the way to its conclusion. Then to go back and look at another possible path. One reason for Owen to be acting the way he was on MSN could be that he was trolling me. Another could be that he really thought there was something objectionable in my post. Another is that despite all his assurances that he’s just poking fun of me in his posts and on IRC, he does actually dislike me and wants to be an ass.

The third is extremely unlikely—he has no reason to dislike me; I’ve been nothing but kind to him, and I’m his Kamina etc. etc. Or whatever. Even if he likes me less than he used to, there’s no incentive to be a bitch to me.

The second makes no sense. I stand by what I said before: it was standard notdotq fare.

Let us now examine the first.

Trolling. Why does Owen do it? Why does anyone do it? It’s fun to elicit reactions. We troll when we’re bored. We troll for the lulz. Trolling in IRC makes sense. You make more people laugh. Trolling on forums makes sense. You incense more people. Trolling in comments makes sense. It makes the post author feel important. Trolling in blog posts makes sense. You get seen by people. Basically, trolling is about “control control control”—it’s about influence.

I wasn’t trolling Mike this morning because there was no point for me to do so; we were chatting one on one and I was trying to spread information to him. Personally, I see no point in trolling in that kind of environment. A one-off joke, sure, but a line of douchefaggery that accomplishes nothing and affects only one person?

If Owen was trolling, he was only pleasing himself.

And that…

.. is the worst kind of troll.

I love your blog, Owen. And I’m glad it’s successful, or whatever. I don’t know what that has to do with this. I’ve used my brain—I’ve jotted down thoughts, I’ve done everything within my power to comprehend why you’ve just proved to be an ass. I’ve done everything within my power to figure out what I’d done wrong, or why you thought I did anything wrong. I will not fix my post.

I hope, however, that you get over your petty grudges against Drm and Mike.

I hope that you learn that everything has a time and place. That everything includes trolling. That trolling having a specific time and place means that there’s a time and place that does not accommodate trolling. Think before flaming. Use your brain for once. Your blog isn’t the world; you’re not an awesome person just because a post about Lucky Star garnered more than fifty comments. Being able to write e-penor-enhancing editorials on a blog is one thing. Being able to write meaningless pseudo-intellectual invectives in a chat window is something else.

I hope—that you stop failing.