Death of the Forum Troll (notrly)
From my brain
An interesting post in the middle of a thread simply called "!" on the WoW general boards by Huitzil of < Sauced > on Antonidas.
Quite often on these forums you will see a poster called a “troll”. This response is meant to imply that the poster is posting in order to provoke a reaction, instead of putting forward views they actually hold. It is true that trolls do exist, in various inflammatory forms, on almost all internet forums, and much effort is put into discovering wether a post is a troll, or a “real” attempt at discussion. I would argue that this effort is wasted. It does not matter if a post is a troll or not.
In the 1960’s a literary critic named Roland Barthes wrote an essay “Death of the Author” arguing against interpreting a text in the context of the author’s intentions and background. Barthes argued that considering the authors identity in order to understand the text is a convenient method of applying meaning to a text, allowing a definitive explanation, and allowing the reader to respond “This is what she meant”. This definitive explanation is flawed, however. Creating an invisible author allows you to pigeon-hole their ideas, imposing an artificial limit on their text, and cutting off possible meanings, ideas and interpretations which lie inherently or implicitly in the text.
Instead, Barthes encourages us to separate text and creator, instead of creating an invisible author in order to discover meaning, read the text for itself. Meaning is derived, not from what the author meant, but from what the reader comprehends from the text. In this way, the author is unimportant, and the reader is all important, “a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination”.
For example, you could read this post and think ‘heh, first year philosophy student, trying to sound intelligent…”. In this way you could assign me an (in this case, incorrect) identity, allowing you to simply interpret any meaning in the text in this context, and reply accordingly.
Following Barthes, however, instead of trying to discover my intent or background, you would try to discover what you understood from this text. Search the text, not for clues as to who I am, but for further understandings.
The modern forum adds another facet to this argument; the forum troll. Forum trolling could be said to be a game of identity deception. The troll attempts to pass themselves off as a legitimate participant in the forum discussion, where their intent is in fact to inflame and provoke. The community, being cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings, and reply accordingly, “4/10”.
Troll posts are common, as are posts denouncing other users as trolls. Many posts you read on these forums are simply written for the purpose of getting a reaction. If we follow Barthes advice, we find that it simply does not matter if the post is a troll or not. Their intent is unimportant. What is important is what they write, and any discussion that can be gained through their writings.
Next time you read a new post, do not ask yourself “is this just trying to provoke me”, but “what is my reaction to this”, and respond accordingly.
Roland Barthes essay “Death of the Author” can be found here: http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/wyrick/debclass/whatis.htm
