The Art of Internet Ettiqute and How, Sometimes, It’s More Fun To Ignore It

There are seven golden rules to live by when submitting something to the vast world of the Internets. These rules, The Blogger’s Code of Conduct, are so universal that you find people adhering to them on social networking sites and message boards.

The rules are:

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.

That is to say, I observe them. I follow them. I pretty much preach them.
Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes, I just enjoy having a little fun. Something that people who browse my Facebook are well aware of.

You see, while I ignore the trolls in a conventional internet gathering, I’ve dwelled among them for so long that the tears of the butt hurt masses simply fill me with a warm sensation of accomplishment. Watching people get pissy over a certain combination of letters on a page on the internet fills my black heart with so much glee that I lick my fingers in delight and try to stir it up more.

I thrive in the shitstorm, watching as it claims victims. You see, at times, I really enjoy trolling.

Know that every troll is wearing this face when his targets go insane.

My trolling is limited to the new hotness of Social Networking, Facebook. You see, the status message and wall/home system make it so that everyone who considers you a friend will see it and as such everyone will draw some kind of emotional stance from it.

But, of course, if you really plan to ignore the rules of ettiqute and act like an ass in our otherwise nice and wholesome cyberculture, you have to be subtle. Going into a group for Christians who love god and saying “God doesn’t exist” is tacky and easily ignored. You have to draw everyone in by making them care.

Subtly, friends. Its all about subtly.  After all, if you were to walk into a mall with a nuke, you’d be arrested on sight. If you want to shoot the place up, you’d need to break your weapon down and slip it into a inconspicious case.

For example, a rather good shit storm of recent started with a political question, one that has the whole country heated and is still getting responses on my page now. Those are the best ones, really. Everyone has a claim in the matter and will fight until the world ends for it. Gay Marriage, Abortion, Health Care reform, doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that these will, in fact, lead to hatefest. People will spew poison on each other. Its just your job to ensure it doesn’t die down.

Attack the people! Make them scream at each other! If you can get more people involved, then the flames will wind up feeding themselves after a certain point and you can just sit back and munch the popcorn.

And take sides. Nothing is better for making the hatefest grow than taking sides. If you’re sniping at fast food, then say that growth hormones have never been proven to hurt people. It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to get them mad. If the words “You’re Stupid!” ever comes out of the other guy’s mouth, then you’re winning.

Sure, Trolling is dangerous. Sometimes, you wind up losing friends as a result of it. Or at least, people on your friend list. But that’s stupid anyway, because anyone with 250+ friends on a Social Networking Site that isn’t some kind of celebrity is a friendless person anyway. And those people’ll will still talk to you on the street anyway.

But in the long run, you get entertainment. I myself love knowing that a certain friend will always jump in a political debate to defend a side, only for other people to jump in, only for some other girl to randomly jump in and start screaming at him for no reason other than the abnormal amounts of sexual tension between them. And the whole time, I simply laugh and omnomnom on poppin’ corn.

Trolling is all good fun, people. Well, for the troll. Blame my extended exposure to 4chan, but there’s nothing like a good shit storm to bring the mood.