Yahoo!

Yahoo! Trolling Phenomena

As with all popular websites that provide message forums for its users, the Internet portal Yahoo! is the frequent target of Internet trolls. However, because the site does not target a specific audience, unlike other popular websites such as Slashdot, Yahoo! encourages input from a diverse cross-section of both the United States and the world. This environment has fostered a unique and distinctive trolling culture all of its own.

Overview

Although Yahoo! Inc. maintains non-US versions of Yahoo!, such as http://www.yahoo.co.uk (Yahoo! UK & Ireland), http://www.yahoo.de (Yahoo! Deutschland), and http://www.yahoo.ca (Yahoo! Canada) the following trolling phenomena mostly apply to Yahoo.com, the US site, as it receives the greatest amount of visitors and, therefore, the greatest exposure.

Yahoo! provides two types of message boards for public use. One set is organized into a topical hierarchy, and is located at http://messages.yahoo.com/index.html. The other message boards are for Yahoo! News articles. Yahoo! News does not carry original content; it publishes stories written by the Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, and various newspapers. Every article on Yahoo! News has an associated message board (Except for articles that fall into the sports or entertainment category) where users can discuss the content; there is a link for that article's particular board at the bottom of every article, and thus these message boards have substantial visibility. In 2005, Yahoo! changed the message board link from a prominent box offering users to post their responses to a smaller link simply labelled "Discuss." Although Yahoo! provides its users with many avenues to access news articles, the most popular message boards - and the ones almost exclusively affected by trolls - are the ones for news stories that appear on the Yahoo! front page.

Although the boards do not require registration to read, a Yahoo! ID is required in order to post. This is a weak deterrent against trolling, however, as ID's are free and do not require e-mail confirmation. Yahoo! also warns users on every post they submit that "Although your IP address is not displayed on your post, Yahoo! does record your yahoo_id...and your IP address" and "Messages that are unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable may be removed and may result in the loss of your Yahoo! ID." These warnings are also weak deterrents, however, as there is no prohibition on a single user owning several Yahoo! ID accounts.

Users do have the power to report posts which violate Yahoo!'s terms of service, but, in virtually all cases, the worst that appears to happen to the alleged perpetrator is a temporary "lockout" from posting immediately after being reported. This lockout lasts for a few minutes, and dedicated trolls familiar with the Yahoo! modus operandi circumvent this by creating multiple ID's, often identifiable by other users as the same offending troll - a typical series might be ATrollsYahooID, ATrollsYahooID1, ATrollsYahooID2, and so forth. Few, if any, reports result in anything substantive, even so much as a deletion of a post, let alone the banning of a user. Once in a while reporters will make their actions known by posting repeated messages on Yahoo! news messageboards warning would-be trollers that trolling behaviours are being reported. However, reporters will often find that their attempts to police and muzzle the trolls are often overcome by the sheer number of trolls inhabiting the boards.

Yahoo! trolls and their habits

Yahoo! attracts the same type of low-level trolling phenomenon as other forums - the common "first post" trolls, petty debates, ad hominem attacks, flamebaiting ("Alaska is the dumbest country in the world!"), etc., but it also boasts some particular distinctions, as many trolls use fads that are only found on Yahoo! forums (similar things happen on the GameFAQs message boards, but to a lesser extent due to their stricter policies). Posters can either start a new thread or reply to another post in an existing thread. Each post is accompanied by the user's ID, which links to his or her Yahoo! profile, and by the user's entered age, sex, and location, although users may decline to enter some or all of this information. When age, sex, or location is present in a troll's profile, they are often falsified and sometimes provocative (location: "Around Uranus").

Trolls rely upon attention-grabbing subject headings in order to attract debate and outrage. With so many messages, it can be difficult to attract attention without an effective subject wording. Typing the subject heading in capital letters has been one method; other trolls alternate capital and lowercase words in order to stand out, a modification of "StudlyCaps", whilst others resort to prefixing and/or suffixing the heading with one or more exclamation points, dollar signs, or even Unicode characters such as "?". However, beyond textual highlights, a provocative subject is also essential for successful trolling.

One facet of Yahoo! trolling is the recommendation ("rec") system. Posts - whether they are the start of a new thread or a reply to an existing one - can be recommended by other users with a Yahoo ID, much as posts in other forums are "modded up". However, there is no countermeasure, or "mod down" analogue. The number of recommendations a post has earned is displayed in both the sequential view of all of the messages on a board and the single-thread view. The more recommendations a post has, the more likely the casual viewer is to read it, which is precisely what the troll wants. Trolls used to be able to dupe unsuspecting users to recommending their post by following purportedly legitimate links, but Yahoo! has eliminated that avenue. However, trolls can easily use multiple ID's to recommend their own posts by logging out and logging back in under a new ID. Generally speaking, about one-third to one-half of all posts get at least one recommendation (legitimately or otherwise). Five or more recs denote high recognition, ten or more recs denote extremely high recognition, and anything in the teens, twenties, or above is accorded virtual "must read" status. For observers or other trolls interested in finding the most potent jokes about a particular story, the recs are often used as a guide.

Yahoo! troll postings can range from inflammatory subjects with no message whatsoever to extended tracts carried out over several paragraphs. Unlike other forums, Yahoo! users cannot subsequently edit their posts, so the phenomena exhibited are very much "brute force". In contrast to some of the more clever, intricate Slashdot trolling phenomena which involves misleading other users via editing, Yahoo! trolls need to make an immediate impression with the post they offer to the board.

Racist and bigoted trolls

Many Internet forums are affected by racist and bigoted trolls, but on Yahoo! the problem is more widespread. Almost any time Yahoo! carries a story about a minority group, or even involving an individual member of a minority group, a certain number of trolling posts appear. Jews, East Asians, South Asians, and homosexuals are common targets, along with both men and women in general. The two most common targets, however, are Blacks and Muslims, especially Arab Muslims.

Blacks, often referred to as "gorillas", "monkeys", "Negros", or most commonly "nigs" or "niggers" (or, in the orthography of the Yahoo! troll, "n1ggers", "n!ggers", or "niqqers"), are the most frequent target. Any post dealing with Africa or the African American community provokes a set of troll postings. For stories where any sort of crime is described and there are no pictures or descriptions of the suspect, "was it a n1gger?" posts are inevitable. In 2005, the message boards for stories on Hurricane Katrina - which struck predominantly Black New Orleans - were inundated with such messages along the lines of "Planet of the Apes meets Waterworld!" and "Bunch of dead n1ggers, who gives a fcuk?"

Arabs and Muslims - otherwise known as "Muzzies", "Mudslimes", "camel jockeys", "sand niggers" or "dune coons" - are often the topic of extended rants by trolls, who often implicate the entire Muslim and Arab world for the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks and other terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic extremists. Natural disasters yielding high death tolls in Muslim or Arab states are met with exultant cries of "praise be to Allah!"

"Sick post" trolls

"Sick post" trolls attempt to revolt, disgust, and disturb Yahoo! users, often prompting such trollbait replies as "You're sick! Get some help!", which tends to provoke the troll further. Examples include sentiments such as "I hope she was raped" and "I fukked her little white corpse" on boards for stories on young kidnapping victims whose remains are discovered. Other such posts include detailed descriptions of rape (sometimes of a child), necrophilia, or some other unsettling action the troll purportedly performed.

Another common tactic for "Sick post" trolls is to use a Bait and switch method of trickery by posting something offensive in the subject line, and then continuing the subject in the actual message turning the post around into something less offensive. An example is - Subject "I JUST FUCKED A 5 YEAR OLD"; Message - "GIRL'S MOTHER WHO I MARRIED 2 YEARS AGO".

See also "Yahoo! Profile Trolls" below.

US political trolls

Perhaps the most common trolling phenomenon on the Yahoo! boards is the US political troll. The two major sides of the American political spectrum (Liberal/Democrat and Conservative/Republican) are represented in comparable numbers, although trolls of both political affiliations often purport to be members of the opposing group, as agents provocateur. Aside from protracted rants against George W. Bush (or "Dumbya", or "The Chimp"), Bill and Hilary Clinton (or "Klinton"), the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and other American political figures, parties, and institutions, these posters spend much of their time hurling petty insults and one-liners in the other direction.

Conservatives and Republicans are labelled "repukes", "repugs", "neo-cons", and "cons", Liberals and Democrats become "libtards", "libturds", "libs", "libbies", or "dims". Many posts feature outlandish subject lines such as "NEO-NAZI NEO-CONS SUPPORT RAPING OF CHILDREN" or "LEFT-WING LIBTARDS CHEER ON AMERICAN DEATHS"; the posts themselves can range from blank messages, to extended denunciations of the other group or detailed "explanations" of why the accused group enjoys "raping children" and "American deaths". Most - perhaps all - stories not even remotely related to American politics will feature trolls "blaming" Bush or the Democratic Party for something in the article, or otherwise hurling politcally charged insults at each other. Other common posts include "I JACKED OFF IN A LIBERAL'S SALAD TODAY" or "I JUST BUTTFUCKED A MARINE'S WIFE".

Because the boards are so rife with politically motivated trolls, these types of posts very easily garner numerous recommendations by trolls on "the same side" and thus easily incline neutral readers to view them.

Regionalistic, nationalistic, and "USA vs. The World" trolls

Provinciality, regionalism, and nationalism are very common among Yahoo! trolls. Although Yahoo! has regional variants for all of the most populous countries, many international English-speaking users (native or otherwise), especially trolls, prefer the "default" US Yahoo! site (http://www.yahoo.com) as described above.

Sometimes trolling rages on the intranational level, most commonly pitting "Red State" trolls against "Blue State" trolls. This is especially common if the news article is about one particular state, provoking boasting or berating as the article's topic merits. This is generally a variant of the phenomena described above. Another variation on this theme is North versus South, which invariably degenerates into the same Red State-Blue State debate, as most trolling Northerners identify as "blue staters" and Southerners as "red staters".

There are several ongoing trolling debates involving US states, such as New York versus California; Massachusetts, New England, or New York versus Texas; and New York City versus Boston or Los Angeles. Far more common, however, are international debates. Although there are a small number of non-US debates - India versus Pakistan or the United Kingdom versus Ireland, for example - far more common are trolling wars that pit the United States against some other civil entity on the other: England or the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Europe or the European Union, and often the United Nations and the world in general.

Such comments as "AMERICA HAS FUQUED UP THE WORLD AND ALL AMERICANS DESERVE TO DIE" and "PLEASE NUKE (appropriate country) NOW SO I CAN SEE DEAD (appropriate nationality)S" are all but assured. Detailed, extended criticisms of American culture or leadership and unfavorable comparisons between the country in question and the United States - laced with flamebaiting language - are particularly common, as are purportedly American criticisms of that country's people or comments about that country's lack of significance compared to America. Similar events transpire whenever Yahoo! posts a front-page news story on the European Union. Even articles that deal with the US, especially if they portray concerning national trends or otherwise unflattering aspects of American culture, will provoke similar responses if a "foreign troll" happens to post flamebait deriding America, comparing America unfavorably to his own country. In other scenarios, the posts will just deride America without claiming any nationalistic affiliation, or otherwise devolve into a USA versus The World debate.

In any international debate, national epithets are sure to be involved - "Yank" or "Yankee", "Limey", "Frog", "Euro" or "Eurotrash", "Canuck" or "Canuckistani" - as are negative stereotypes: Americans are overweight, the British are poodles of America, Canadians are agents of the United Nations, the French are corrupt, and so forth.

Rec whores

Rec whores are trolls who try to garner as many recommendations as possible. Usually, these posts begin with "REC IF YOU..." in the subject line. Not all such posts are the work of trolls, although many clearly are ("REC IF YOU HATE THE CHIMP", "REC IF YOU THINK MICHAEL MOORE IS GAY"). Much of this body of contributions contain just the subject line and a blank message. Some efforts are more inspired, such as a post bearing the subject line "REC THIS POST..." and a message body along the lines of "...if you're happy to be a flaming homosexual who rapes little children!" Other efforts use reverse psychology, such as "REC THIS POST ONLY IF YOU'RE A MORON", or bizarre threats, such as "IF THIS GETS 100 RECS I'LL CUT OFF MY BALLS WITH A DULL KNIFE!"

Yahoo! profile trolls

A Yahoo! profile troll is a troll who somehow entices his victims into clicking on his user ID in the post to take the unsuspecting victim to the troll's Yahoo! profile, which will boast a revolting picture from a shock site such as Tubgirl or goatse.cx. A variant of this troll posts hyperlinks to shock pictures under the guise of being links to more appropriate photographs.

A different sort of Yahoo! Profile Troll replies to other users' posts and attacks them for information they put into their Yahoo! profile, such as their age, gender, location, or, most commonly, their picture.

Idiosyncratic trolls

Some Yahoo! trolls have a distinctive style all of their own and garner a considerable following, invariably including copycats and impersonators who take similar ID's and pass themselves off as the "real" troll.

Other trolling phenomena

Finally, there are inside jokes unique to Yahoo! that do not fit into any of the above categories, yet are commonly employed by trolls enough to merit inclusion:

• "Al Gore invented..."

Whatever the subject of a news story might be, a common spoof post is "Al Gore invented (the item in question)". Examples: "AL GORE INVENTED WINDOWS XP", "AL GORE INVENTED BLACK BOXES", "AL GORE INVENTED GAY SEX". Oftentimes they become more abstract to deal with the news topic at hand: "AL GORE INVENTED THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC", "AL GORE INVENTED GEORGE W. BUSH". This practice peaked in the early 2000s, but has fallen out of favor in recent years as Al Gore's national prominence has receded. This practice derives from the misquoted version of Al Gore's famous televised misstatement of "I took the initaitive in creating the Internet" as "I invented the Internet" while explaining his ground-breaking promotion of Internet legislation. As with other Yahoo! trolling idiosyncracies, this practice has also been widely parodied on the message boards. After George W. Bush referred to "the internets" in a 2004 electoral debate, a celebrated post was "GEORGE W. BUSH INVENTED THE INTERNETS".

• "Roger Moore is dead"

Another common post refers to the fictional death of a celebrity, most frequently Roger Moore. The subject line is occasionally along the lines of "CNN JUST REPORTED THIS", and the message often contains a short, sometimes humorous vignette on Moore's untimely demise. This is especially common for news stories of widescale humanitarian disasters: Sir Roger was one of the victims. Other news stories which report great advances in human civilization often prompt posts which take his death for granted: "Too bad Roger Moore died before this happened." The classic closing of any Roger Moore post is "RIP Roger Moore, you were the best 007 ever. You will be missed." Although this practice has also fallen out of favor in recent years, reporting fake celebrity deaths or other fake news, especially under the rubric of "I JUST SAW THIS ON CNN", remains a widespread practice.

A similar phenomenon exists among Slashdot trolls, except their "casualty" of choice is Stephen King. As Slashdot news is generally tech-oriented, most of these posts are extremely off-topic. Yahoo trolls, on the other hand, can work Roger Moore into the article at hand.

• "I'm shaking in anger"

The expression "I'm shaking my (something) in anger", or "I'm shaking with anger", was especially prominent on the Yahoo! boards from around 2003 to 2004. It is still often parodied today; an article on testicular cancer might prompt such posts as "I'M SHAKING MY BALLS IN ANGER". Humorous trolls would post "I'M SHAKING MY TECTONIC PLATES IN ANGER" on an article about earthquakes.

• "Assraping the corpse"

News stories involving the death of an individual often prompt posts along the lines of "I ASSRAPED THE CORPSE", "CAN I ASSRAPE THE CORPSE?", "LET'S ASSRAPE THE CORPSE", or some other variant. Originally this was the preserve of "sick post" trolls, but gained so much prominence that it has become a fully-fledged Yahoo trolling phenomenon in its own right. As with other forms of profane trolling, often "assrape" is intentionally misspelled- usually as "azzrape".

• "A HUGE DEFEAT FOR LIBERALS/DEMOCRATS or CONSERVATIVES/REPUBLICANS"

News that reports something that one of the groups stands against, prompts the post with the above stated headline, for example: If a story reporting something positive happening on Iraq is stated as a defeat for liberals, and likewise, for example a story involving a breakthrough in science is defined as a huge defeat for conservatives.

• BOARD FLOODING

At least one poster employs a technique of somehow circumventing Yahoo's 10 posts/20 minutes/ID limit and floods the board with dozens to hundreds of nearly identical posts in the span of a minute or two, apparently by employing thousands of exclamation points - usually at the end ROTFLMFAO! - and deleting one with each post, thus evading Yahoo's ban on identical posts within a short time span. This technique also causes the page to scroll way over to the right, confusing some would-be respondents.

External links

• Trollwars forum

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This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.