Welcome to Trollandia: A somewhat useful guidebook about how to identify and deal with trolls online and otherwise

By Reggie Dunlop

Welcome to Trollandia: a somewhat useful guidebook about how to identify and deal with trolls online and otherwise is author Reggie Dunlop's first book. He was told for years that he should write a book about trolls due to this uniquely prickish, yet insightful understanding of how those sad saps tick. So here it is! This book examines the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of trolling.
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Welcome is meant to do two things - explain to the reader how to dismiss or downplay trolls, and also to make the reader laugh! It's mostly about the laughs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Sep 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642377378

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This book is a guide for people that are forced to deal with trolls. I’ll use anecdotal examples of how lame trolls are, as well as examples that may not mesh with your left or right politics. Don’t fret, because this book isn’t meant to delve into politics or social issues any further than how they relate to trolls and their tactics of dragging your common sense through the mud. This book is also meant to entertain you as your clever coffee table book, or to keep you busy during your domestic plane flight. I only mention a domestic flight because there’s no way that this read will crack you up for an entire transcontinental journey, due to its length. If you read fast, then it may not cover you through a longer domestic connection, such as Los Angeles to Chicago, but you’re good to go with a Dallas to Phoenix flight.

Encountering trolls is nearly unavoidable on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, FaceTwitter, SnapFace, BookChat, and whatever the hell other types of bullshit sites are out there for us to waste our time on. The old saying that the only two things that are guaranteed in life are death and taxes should be changed to the only three things that are guaranteed in life are death, taxes, and running into miserable trolls who want to make you as angry as they are. Admittedly, the latter catchphrase doesn’t roll off the tongue like the original.

It’s happened a million times; you log in to check your email, and BOOM, you see a salacious headline posted to the side of your email icon. But you don’t just see the article, do you? Noooo. You were graciously given previews of the comments section with literary nuggets such as what about Hillary and people in flyover states are dumb. It’s like watching a car wreck, except that you’re not staring at human carnage…. you’re staring at something more depressing, which are morons that are cyber-screaming to be heard. You didn’t even remember what the original article that you clicked on was about by the time that said shitcannery was over! Unfortunately, paTrolls, which are purposeful trollings, are a common occurrence on the internet, and there are no signs of them slowing down.

I have little doubt that you know a troll or ten. You may have that friend who thinks that he’s a libertarian because he listened to a Ron Paul speech. And if that same buddy has read part of an Ayn Rand novel, then he’s definitely going to gab about the virtues of self-responsibility. Or, maybe you know the inverse of the Ron Paul guy, so now you’re hearing about how universal basic income will work from your friend who works as a DJ at your local strip club. The list of excuses that trolls use, political and otherwise, go on forever. Sadly, the age of social media has made everyone feel like they are empowered experts simply because they have a platform to speak. That leaves you stuck in the middle of a world full of angry idiots aiming to convince themselves that they’re not worthless by pissing off other people.

If trolls are ubiquitous, then what’s a schmoe to do in order to avoid any unintended trips to Shit City? This book offers help!

Trolls are annoying, but manageable if you know what type of troll that you’re dealing with. This book gives descriptions of the three major troll species, which are goons, goblins, and demons. Lesser known subspecies and subtypes of trolls will be discussed, as well. But you could give a shit what trolls are called, right? You want answers about how to deal with them. You’re in luck, hombre. Your drunk uncle? I’ve got the remedy. Dealing with a film major friend-of-a-friend who can’t stop rambling about why your obsession with sports is such a drag? No sweat. Has Facebook become a pain to log in to because armchair political experts won’t stop with their campaigns? Easy answers here. Maybe you need to find a way to escape your racist relatives’ rants during the holidays? I got you covered.

Now that you’ve committed to this read; remember to limit the number of mini vodkas to five during the business flight you’re on, because these nuggets of knowledge will make trolls easier to deal with.

Read the Glossary of Ridiculous Terms before you move past this paragraph. It’s not a massive codex. I promise. It’ll help prime you to understand the differences between the forms of trolls and non-trolls, and to better grasp what Trollandia is and isn’t. This is my first book, so you shouldn’t worry about me prattling on at Stephen King lengths about anything.

What and where is Trollandia?

Where is Trollandia if not a place where angry, bitter, and ignorant trolls can go to share their misery, feel empowered, and to think that they’re right? Um, nowhere. Trollandia is exactly that. Trollandia is the place where trolls dwell that is mostly cyber and sometimes physical. Chat boards, certain television shows, instant messages, social media, and physical spaces (for the frisky trolls) comprise Trollandia.

Trolls carry Trollandia around like fanny packs, so it’s found anywhere that they are. The most adorable of online animal rescue videos will be met by trolls with I can’t BELIEVE how poorly that rescue operation was conducted! And for television? Well, there are intellectually stimulating shows such as ‘Amish Mafia’ that aren’t meant to troll. But, if you turn the channel to anything remotely dealing with current affairs, then expect to be sledgehammered by fidealist scrubbers who want to tinker with your emotions. And on the radio? Turn on talk radio and listen to Rush Limbaugh slobber his way through a parade of who he can’t stand. And, finally, the physical space that comprises Trollandia isn’t safe either. Why would a troll want everyone at the bars to relax and have a good time, when he or she could ruin it all by cracking an egg of street knowledge wide open about how the Earth is flat?!?

Bear in mind that Trollandia is where epistemology goes to die. Kiss logic, reason, level-headedness, and empirical investigation goodbye there! Emotion will always trump the rational mind in Trollandia.

Trolls were here before the internet

Angry trolls were with us before the internet. All that the internet did was give trolls a platform to annoy more folks than just their family and friends during holidays and social gatherings. trolls online are the same feeble folks that you’ve encountered at grocery stores, parking lots, and restaurants a million times before. Internet trolls are an excellent character study in how suddenly brave that one can be when they are anonymous or physically removed from interacting with others.

A Net full of trolls

Do you remember when the internet offered limitless potential for human enlightenment? I do. It was glorious. In the 1990s, the internet was a thing that you had to pay $0.99 a minute to a company called ‘America Online,’ so that you could print directions to places or look up something important for school. Chat rooms were the closest thing to Trollandia’s cyber platform in the 90’s. Communicating with others online then was different because it was conducted mainly via group chats, and it’s tough to troll when there are 50 excitable teenagers bouncing messages back and forth. There were private chat rooms, but it was super rapey to go into one back then. It still is when you consider that a lot of those ‘To Catch a Predator’ episodes apprehend their would-be kid fondlers in private chats rooms.

Today, there are a hundred different ways to connect and communicate with others online. Therefore, the avenues to troll have expanded from disorganized chat rooms to sites ranging between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and comments sections that many websites feature so that idiots can argue about issues that they won’t care about a week after they’ve called each other cunts for having divergent opinions. Gone are the days of excitable teenagers on group chats babbling about music as if they were in the same room, and here to stay are the long nights of embittered adults insulting each other in ways that they would never dream of doing in person.

Researching this was