You know, I've thought more than once
about closing the comment section, but
then thinking it over, it would have
been kind of like closing the channel
itself.
And so I asked myself, what would be the
point?
There are fantastic comments, and I'm
not just referring to the thank yous,
which I appreciate, but especially to
the technical ones, the critiques, the
intelligent observations.
However, there's a small percentage, I'd
say 5%, 10%, a non-critical, but very
loud and annoying minority made up of
senseless comments. And this is where I
often find myself reflecting on the
ethics and meaning of online
communities, on the behavioral
anthropology of human beings in digital
spaces, and on why we pick our noses in
the car thinking we're closed in our
room when in reality everyone is
watching us. And if you think this
example doesn't make sense or isn't
related, you're wrong. In human
relationships, when there's a filter,
when there's distance, many people's
filters break down. They go out the
window. Hysteras emerge, exceptions,
extremizations, and trolling falls
exactly into these phenomena. So today,
writing my historical verve and my
passion for the internet, especially the
old one, I want to dedicate this video
precisely to you, dear beloved trolls,
to your history, to what you were, and
to who among you distinguished
themselves so well as to remain
memorable in their trolling.
The inspiration for this video comes
from watching another video by a famous
Italian YouTuber which I referenced to
tell you their story. But from there I
broaden the discussion expanding the
narrative to the history of all other
memorable trolls. A sort of troll hall
of fame.
Oh god.
Because my objective is to make a
serious documentary about the cultural
phenomenon of the troll and explain that
it's not just a negative figure. In
fact, not negative at all. We've
confused professional trolls with simple
serial harassers without sense. But in
reality, trolling is not at all a
negative phenomenon. Nor is it done by
negative characters with negative
intentions. The first online communities
had absurd rules written by pri
insurmountable rules often outside human
logic and common sense. And this is
exactly where trolls insert themselves.
They are elements that dismantle the
system, that show its true face, its
real weaknesses. They deliberately
exacerbate the crulest defects of online
communities. Credul, bigotry, widespread
aggression. In this sense, they are true
anti-system elements. And their deeds,
sometimes even epic, have contributed
more to improving than worsening the
internet. At least in my view.
Before talking about trolls, we need to
talk about Usenet. Usenet wasn't a
social network as we understand them
today. There were no profiles,
followers, likes, or algorithms. It was
a distributed network of news groups,
thematic spaces where people wrote text
messages that were replicated on servers
around the world. An open, chaotic,
often extremely technical environment
governed more by customs than by actual
written rules. And it's precisely in
this context that trolling is born. At
the beginning, it wasn't a moral label.
It wasn't synonymous with hatred or
harassment. Trolling literally meant
casting bait, writing something
apparently naive, absurd, or provocative
to see who would bite. It was a social
game, a test of attention, a way to
unmask the excess of seriousness, the
dogmatism, and the rigidity of the first
online communities. One of the first
truly recognizable cases is that of
James Kbo Perry in the early 90s on
Usenet. KBO wasn't famous for insults or
direct attacks. His peculiarity was
different.
He would intervene in threads with
deliberately out of context, surreal,
often ironic messages, but always
carefully written. His objective wasn't
to destroy the discussion, but to bend
it, put it in crisis, force other users
to react disproportionately.
His most famous deed is having created a
sort of automatic reflex in the
community. You just had to write the
word kbo in a thread and he would
appear. From here, the term kibbozing
was born. used to describe the act of
intervening only because one's name had
been mentioned. The result was almost
always the same. Useless explanations,
endless flames, users losing control.
KBO didn't break the rules. He showed
how fragile they were. Shortly after, in
1993, comes a very different and much
more controversial case. Mr. Bungle
inside Lambda Moo, one of the first
textual virtual worlds. Here, trolling
changes nature. Mr. Bungle uses a script
called Voodoo Doll, which allows him to
describe actions performed by other
avatars without their consent. Through
text, he simulates disturbing behaviors,
attributing them to other users. It's no
longer just intellectual provocation,
but an action that directly hits people.
This case is fundamental because it
marks a boundary. The reactions are so
strong that they force the Lambda
community to do something that until
that moment the internet had avoided.
create rules, create moderation, create
a form of governance.
It's one of the first examples where a
trolling action leads to the birth of
power structures within a digital
community. In the same years, still on
Usenet, Sdar Argic appears, a pseudonym
behind which hides one of the first
massive and automated provocation
campaigns.
SAR Argic doesn't seek dialogue, doesn't
seek irony. He publishes thousands of
messages, often identical, cross-osted
on dozens of news groups. The contents
are deliberately extreme and repetitive.
The objective isn't to convince, but to
saturate, to make the space unusable.
His true historical deed is forcing
Usenet to defend itself. Technically,
kill files are born. Tools that allow
users to automatically filter certain
authors. Rules against cross-osting are
born, as well as the first forms of
collective self-defense. Here the troll
becomes a stress test of the system. No
longer just cultural but
infrastructural.
These first cases show one thing very
clearly. Trolling isn't born as pure
destruction. It's born as a breaking
mechanism as an anti-system element that
highlights the weaknesses of online
communities. Their credul, their
moralism, their latent aggression. And
above all, it shows that from the
beginning, every time trolling really
works, it forces the system to change.
With the end of the '9s, Usenet slowly
begins to lose centrality.
It doesn't disappear, but it's no longer
the beating heart of online culture. The
internet is expanding. New users are
arriving, less technical, less aware of
the unwritten rules that had governed
the first communities. It's in this
phase that trolling changes skin. It's
no longer confined to spaces for a few
insiders. It begins to circulate, to
move, to become recognizable even
outside niches. And for the first time,
it assumes a new form. It becomes viral.
An emblematic example of this transition
is Rick Rolling. The mechanism is
simple. A link promises one thing and
always leads to the same video. No
personal attack, no aggression, no
ideological stance, just the breaking of
expectation. Trust betrayed in a playful
way. The deed of Rick Rowling isn't the
video content, but the collective
gesture. Millions of people
participating in the same joke,
repeating it, adapting it, recognizing
it. It's the first example of global
trolling, understandable to anyone,
regardless of language or technical
culture. Trolling becomes shared
language, no longer just local
provocation. Immediately after, in the
early 2000s, trolling finds a new home.
Centralized forums. One of the most
important is something awful. Something
awful is fundamental because it
transforms trolling into style. Here you
don't improvise. Here you build. The
troll is no longer just someone who
disturbs, but someone who observes,
studies, waits for the right moment.
Victims aren't chosen randomly, but
represent archetypes. The arrogant
expert, the fanatic, the moralizer, the
digital narcissist.
The deeds of something awful trolls
don't consist of destroying discussions,
but publicly ridiculing them, showing
how certain online behaviors are
fragile, repetitive, predictable. And
it's here that much of modern mimetic
culture is born. Images, phrases,
formats that survive the original
context and begin to circulate
everywhere. But above all, something
awful introduces a new idea. Trolling as
spectacle for others. It's no longer
just about the victim's reaction. What
counts is the silent applause of the
community. From this environment, a
fundamental awareness is also born.
Anonymity isn't just protection. It's
narrative power. It allows you to strike
without being struck, to observe without
being observed, to construct temporary
masks. And it's precisely this idea that
will be taken to the extreme in the next
chapter.
And this is where we arrive at the
definitive breaking point. 4chan.
When 4chan is born in the early 2000s,
it takes everything that had been
experimented with before and pushes it
to the extreme. Anonymity becomes total.
Profiles don't exist. Reputation doesn't
exist. Memory doesn't exist. Threads are
ephemeral, destined to disappear.
Nothing is designed to last. This
radically changes the nature of
trolling. The troll is no longer a
recognizable individual with a personal
style or signature. The troll becomes a
collective force, an indistinct mass.
Anyone can participate. Anyone can
disappear. Only the action counts, not
who performs it. It's in this context
that raids are born. Raids aren't simple
pranks. They're coordinated operations.
dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of
users who decide to hit a space external
to 4chan following precise rules, shared
timing, common symbols. The target can
be a forum, an online game, a social
platform. One of the most famous
examples is pools closed. In the case of
pools closed, 4chan users massively
invade Habbo Hotel, a virtual world
frequented mainly by young users.
Avatars are made deliberately identical.
spaces are physically occupied, blocked,
not through bugs or technical exploits,
but simply using the systems rules
against the system itself.
The deed is this demonstrating that a
social platform can be paralyzed without
violating its code. You just need to
exploit its logic. Pools closed is
important because it clearly shows the
passage from trolling as intellectual
provocation to trolling as emergent mass
action. No one really commands. No one
is responsible and precisely because of
this the impact is enormous.
It's also the moment when trolling
reaches its maximum creative potential.
Collective intelligence produces ideas,
symbols, rituals. But it's also the
moment when degeneration begins. Because
when no one is responsible, when
everything is temporary, the boundary
between satire, provocation, and
symbolic violence becomes increasingly
thin. Many raids are playful, absurd,
even brilliant. Others begin to hit real
people, individual persons, fragile
communities. The target is no longer the
system, but the human being. And this is
where trolling begins to lose its
anti-system character. It no longer
unmasks the rules. It no longer forces
the system to change. It simply begins
to produce noise. From this moment on,
trolling no longer remains confined to
its original niches. It's about to come
out definitively into the open.
Before trolling is definitively sucked
into social networks, there exists a
fundamental transition phase. A phase
where trolling exits forums and
anonymous environments, but hasn't yet
become organized hatred or monetized
provocation.
This is where a key figure appears. Kenm
Kenm isn't born on Usenet nor on 4chan.
He's born in the comments of mainstream
sites, in the comments of online
newspapers, and subsequently on
platforms like Facebook, when these
spaces were still relatively open,
poorly moderated, and above all, not yet
dominated by algorithms.
His deeds are simple, but extremely
precise. Kenm writes comments that seem
sincere, polite, even naive, but that
contain obvious logical errors. He draws
absurd conclusions starting from benal
premises. He defends blatantly
unsustainable positions with a calm,
almost reasonable tone. He never
insults. He never threatens. He never
attacks. And precisely because of this,
he provokes extremely violent reactions.
People feel obligated to respond, to
explain the obvious, to correct what
shouldn't need explanation.
The more they try to reestablish the
rationality of the discussion, the more
they fall into the trap. Kenm doesn't
directly attack anyone. He simply
observes how others lose control. His
most important deed isn't a single
comment, but having demonstrated that
trolling can work without anonymity,
without chaos, without violence. You
just need to put the language and
expectations of conversation in crisis.
With Kenm, we're probably facing the
last example of classic trolling, the
kind that targets rhetoric,
self-satisfaction, the presumption of
rationality of online communities. After
him, the context changes again and this
time irreversibly. Social networks grow.
Algorithms begin to reward indignation.
Visibility becomes currency. Conflict is
no longer a side effect, but an
objective.
In this environment, the troll is no
longer an anti-system element. It
becomes an integral part of the system
itself. And this is where the term troll
begins to definitively lose meaning.
With the explosion of social networks,
trolling definitively loses its natural
terrain. Platforms are no longer spaces
for confrontation, but spaces for
exposure. Everything is public.
Everything is measurable. Everything is
optimized to generate reactions. In this
context, provocation changes function.
It no longer serves to unmask the
systems weaknesses because the system
itself lives on conflict. indignation is
rewarded, amplified, monetized. The
absurd no longer breaks the game. It
fuels it. And this is where something
symbolically very powerful happens.
Trolling stops hitting communities and
begins to directly hit institutions.
A perfect example is Bodie McBoatface. A
scientific organization opens a public
poll to name a new ship. The idea is to
involve the community to make an
institutional process participatory. But
the internet responds as the internet
has always responded, with irony, with
absurdity, with its own logic. The
result isn't vandalism. It isn't hatred.
It isn't destruction. It's a collective
refusal to behave as expected.
Bodie McBoatface becomes the most voted
name. Not because someone wants to
sabotage scientific research, but
because the very mechanism of the poll
is naive with respect to internet
culture. That's not a prank. It's a
lesson. It demonstrates that online
participation cannot be controlled with
tools designed for the offline world. It
demonstrates that the internet doesn't
respond to authority in the way
institutions expect. But it's also a
final signal because from that moment on
trolling no longer produces change. It
gets absorbed, normalized, transformed
into folklore, marketing meme, case
study. Everything is anticipated,
categorized, sterilized. The real troll
no longer has space. Not because it was
defeated, but because it became
ineffective.
If we go back to the beginning to the
question about comments and the meaning
of online communities, perhaps the
answer is now clearer. The first digital
communities were fragile, rigid, often
dogmatic. And it's precisely because of
this that they needed to be put in
crisis. The troll is born there, not as
destroyer, but as necessary disturber,
as an element that forces the system to
look at itself in the mirror. Every time
a community reacted in a hysterical,
violent or irrational way to a
provocation, it was revealing something
about itself. Over time, however, the
context changed. The internet became
mass, then commercial, then algorithmic.
Platforms stop being spaces where one
could fail, discuss, implode. They
became visibility machines. And in an
environment like that, intelligent
trolling can no longer exist. Not
because it's immoral, but because it's
useless. It no longer breaks anything.
It no longer forces anyone to change.
Today, what remains is not the troll,
but noise. Not masked criticism, but
empty aggression. Not anti-system, but
caricature of conflict. Perhaps this is
why comments today so often seem
useless, toxic, annoying to us. Not
because people have gotten worse, but
because the context has made any form of
intelligent rupture impossible.
Everything gets absorbed, leveled,
transformed into content. And so closing
comments wouldn't be censorship. It
would just be a symbolic gesture. The
real problem was never the trolls.
The real problem is the illusion that
every space must be open, visible,
performative.
Trolling in its best moment served this
purpose, too. And perhaps paradoxically,
the fact that today it's no longer
really possible to do it says much more
about the internet than the trolls
themselves ever did. Ciro, the most
famous Italian troll I mentioned at the
beginning of the video, did
extraordinary things. He dismantled our
turbulent beliefs, our labels, the poor
convictions we build on nothing. He
wasn't a troll as we understand them
today. He created the fake news that
Marge Simpson had died. He disrupted
entire user bases by revealing movie
endings. He manipulated entire
communities by bringing out that deep
hatred we carry inside us primordally
like animals. Yes. Because this is a
much deeper phenomenon, one that leads
back to the very nature of the human
being. As Chiro himself says, "We
dreamed of the internet as if it were a
free utopia, a world where it was
possible to communicate autonomously and
not be slaves to traditional media. And
in the end, it became traditional
media."
And as the same YouTuber I cited at the
beginning says, the internet is no
longer an alternative space. It's no
longer a digital space. It's no longer a
place to take refuge. It has become the
perfect copy of the real world with the
same dynamics, the same defects, the
same wounds. And I can only share this
vision. It's something I perceive and
suffer every day.