The New York Times has a very interesting article by Mattathias Schwartz about Internet trolls: what they've done and what made 'em tick:
“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.
Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”
In life, there's always been mean people and the Web is no exception: Link - via Metafilter | Weev's response in LiveJournal
Photo: Jason Fortuny (of the Lori Drew "Megan Had It Coming" hoax fame), by Robbie Cooper for The New York Times
If a Mudsucker doesmn't work, a bag of peanuts will.
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