Meeting a Troll + Discussion

I found this article through Facebook today about a man who met his online troll, and his reaction to it, and found it incredibly poignant and wanted to share.

http://www.traynorseye.com/2012/09/meeting-troll.html?spref=tw

I received a parcel at my home address. Nothing unusual there - I get a lots of post. I ripped it open and there was a tupperware lunchbox inside full of ashes. There was a note included 'Say hello to your relatives from Auschwitz' I was physically sick.

I was petrified.
They had my address.

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I'll leave the twist in the story for you to read yourself.

Have you ever experienced trolling on this level? Or have you trolled at this level? How do you feel about trolling that crosses into real life?

I wouldn't call that, trolling, that's just plain bullying and I feel extremely sorry for anyone who has to go through anything like that. :/

If someone goes to the level of sending someone something--- You're just plain stupid, cause they can PLAINLY see the return address, all they have to do is report them for harassment.

Wobbachomp said:

I wouldn't call that, trolling, that's just plain bullying and I feel extremely sorry for anyone who has to go through anything like that. :/

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Where do you draw the line between trolling and bullying?

I've never heard of anything like this or never done anything like this. I don't get why people gotta do stuff like this. Idk if it's cause they got no life and need attention or if they are just mentally unstable. That dude obviously belongs either in the penitentiary or a mental institution. That dude seriously needs to get checked.

Toujours said:

Where do you draw the line between trolling and bullying?

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Trolling is bullying of anonymity. It's the same as bullying, but it's worse, because many times those target sites can have guests/anonymous posts.

I think that bullying will exist as far as people exist, but that is just ridiculous. I know trolling is fun for the perpetrator (though I don't condone it), but I would think in this case it would get a bit boring for both of them.

I haven't personally been trolled at all in my time on the internet, but I have witnessed some horrible incidents in trolling.

That's not trolling.. that's threat/ terrorism.

Toujours said:

Where do you draw the line between trolling and bullying?

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I consider trolling messing around for fun, not going to extreme levels like this.

Toujours said:

Where do you draw the line between trolling and bullying?

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I stopped considering it trolling and started considering it bullying and harassment when I read the third paragraph and the DM he received. Trolling isn't something that's that obvious; it's subtle and outright flaming someone like that isn't something that I've ever seen a troll do before. Yeah, they call someone some names every now and then, but not to that degree. I think trolling is a step down from flaming, but they're very closely related and like your question asks, there's sometimes always a thin line between that can be crossed between the two.

I don't have much respect for trolls in general, because I think it's a huge waste of their time to bother someone like that, but I do think trolls are highly intuitive and very quick witted if they do what they do effectively. I'm not really sure how to explain it without boasting trolling and feeding trolls' egos that may be reading this.

This is outright harassment not trolling, it was continuous harassment, the kid repeatedly flamed him called his and his wife horrible names and threatened them. This is way over the line from normal trolling and he obviously has major issues if he would do this and say it was just like a game. Ive been trolled and have had rude things said about me because they obviously thought it was funny but Ive never been harassed or flamed. I personally do not troll because I dont find it funny or cool. I personally think it would be a huge waste of time tbh.

That's just wrong. That's going way too far, and whoever sent that needs to be institutionalized.

I have trolled before on the Internet, but those days are long gone. I was a master troll back in the day with joke accounts on GameFAQs (a site that was very ripe for trolling back in the day, and they allow multiple accounts per IP) and that was quite fun. I never made threats or crossed the line, though, because I at least have morality. It'd mostly be outright mockery, without doing anything bannable. It was mostly a means of fighting back against all the abuse I dealt with there, because they couldn't let things go from when I was an idiot one time.

Finding someone's address is just horrible, though. It's STALKING, and I've dealt with those kind of jerks before. One found my Facebook and I blocked him immediately. He knows it's me, but I know who he is. He deliberately went out of his way to find wherever I was on the Internet just to be a jerk. Thankfully, he's not around anymore, and I sincerely hope something bad happened to him (nothing catastrophic, just a nice slap-in-the-face) to make him realize that he had it coming. The guy was an alcoholic who had nobody, though, so...

I really don't miss him or GameFAQs.

Wow. That is a new extreme.
I would consider that a step further than trolling. Trolling, for me, is simply random people calling you names just cuz they can. Spamming u or flaming because they don't like what you say. This is different. Getting your mail address? SENDING A PARCEL CONTAINING ASHES AND SAYING THEY'RE FROM AUSCHWITZ?? I'm from Austria, and I find that horrible. Its just plain disgusting how people go to such lengths. But I hope the boy learnt his lesson.