orangerful | online trolls and imzy

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online trolls and imzy

Tim just sent me this article from TIME about "How Trolls are Ruining the Internet". I don't feel like there is anything too new here but it was a good read.

Though I do have to say that we need to give these weirdos a better word rather than "conservative" and "alt-right". People who respond to any kind of criticism with racial slurs and death threats need an equally upsetting name. And some of them are "liberals" and "alt-left" too, and they can be just as bad. So let's just get one word that lumps them all together and maybe they will start to realize how they are NOT part of normal society, and no political party needs to feel ashamed for them. Just be ashamed because they exist and disown them all.

The coolest thing was about a new online community created by former Reddit employees. Imzy is meant to be an online community that stays positive, where discussions are actually discussions, not just one sided attacks. And no one is going to build communities on the site around hating other people.

Anyway, I signed up to see if I could get a beta code. I was trying to think if I had any communities I could lead, but I don't think I'm online enough, so I'm not going to apply for that.

There was a lot of excitement these past two days, but I will post about that later. Right now, I need to get myself together :)

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About Imzy -- I have a bunch of invitations (they just sent out ten new ones), so if you'd like one, supposedly that's faster than waiting for a beta invite from the site. Would just need your email.

I tweeted about it and immediately got an invite. :) I am on! Now to poke around... Thank you for the offer though! :D Any communities you would suggest?

Oh, neat to know they're keeping an eye on Twitter!

I've added the various SFF-related communities I could find, like Legendarium, but mostly everything seems to be in the infrastructure building rather than content-generating phase right now... This worldbuilding one seems to be posting a fair bit (I'm not even actively worldbuilding, but like reading about this stuff)

I'd be glad to try it out if you still have invites!

And I agree with you orangerful, that while certain opinions seem to be found largely with right-wing people, misogyny can be found everywhere and there's certainly no limit on bad behavior just because of political leaning. There really does need to be a separation between unacceptable behavior and political discourse.

I do -- just need an email to send an invite to :) (which I think does not need to be the email you'll actually USE on Imzy, just somewhere they'll send you an invite code)

We could use yourlibrarian [at] yahoo.com

And thanks!

Sent! And you're welcome :)

If you still have some invites left, I'd love to try it! :)

daniellesmithgm [at] hotmail [dot] com

Sure -- sent one your way :)

Thank you so much! I love that you can have multiple profiles under one account, instead of having to create throwaways on reddit. :)

Yes, that seems like really great capability! I mostly don't use pseuds or post anonymously, but I think this would make me participate more in anonymemes by making it easier to actually have a conversation on there.

Thanks for the link and the info about Imzy!

That's a great point about needing a better name for them. People who fetishize being cruel and think that makes them free or honest or enlightened to some special truth... (Some word more specific than assholes would be good)

Yeah, I feel like it is above and beyond asshole. Like, assholes would be like "whoa, hey now! I'm just an asshole to everyone, I don't hunt down and abuse people for fun!"

Yeah, liberals can troll hard. I think it's where you go in general. For instance, because I've never really veered into "geekspaces", I didn't realize how much misogyny there was - my spaces had always been very feminist or at least female positive. So when I voiced surprise that a more "geek" oriented site had so many sexists, someone was like "well, yeah, duh." Who knew! (This was before GamerGate and twitter in general brought out a lot of the misogyny.) And my online circles are still pretty liberal, so much of the trolling I see is from fellow liberals who take things too far.

However, I don't think it's always trolling, just people overreacting. To me, trolling is more deliberate. Like if I said "well of course you think that, you watch Buffy." Even if watching Buffy has nothing to do with anything and I'm clearly just digging at you to get a reaction. And of course the really dark and twisted stuff, although in those cases I actually think "troll" is too nice a term.* Whereas some people are just argumentative and defensive. Especially online, where it's so easy to read what you want to read, or what you cynically assume the other person must "really" be saying.

*It's like when you read about bullies, then you find out the bullies tried to kill the kid's dog or something. That's not bullying anymore, that's animal abuse and possible childhood psycopathy.

Edited 2016-08-21 17:20 (UTC)

I think one of the problems with trolling is that it normalizes the behavior so that people just start to post these ridiculous responses to things that they would never do in a public forum. Like when poor Daisy Ridley put the #stoptheviolence at the end of a post during the MTV movie awards when they watched a clip about how many people had died in 2016. People just posted these HUGE rants on her Instagram - I mean, who the hell rants on INSTAGRAM?

And when you read the comments these troll leaders makes, they are doing it for attention and rank more than anything else. They want to be famous for trolling. It just boggles my mind :(

An online community that stays positive? That would be so great!!! I hope they'll be able to keep it that way...

I still think Tumblr ruined the web :) that's were all the negativity comes from... :D

I sometimes feel like the popularity of the web ruined the web. You always had issues, but even in 2002, people mostly used it for emails, news sites and MapQuest. Then everyone started using it and it became near impossible to moderate and/or avoid the cray-cray.

I feel like every part of the web has negativity once enough people show up LOL. It's like, the bigger your office, the more likely you are going to have people that don't work well together? I just don't understand why people feel so comfortable being EVIL online, because that is really the only way I can describe the behavior. I mean, I can't even play 'Mass Effect' and make my video game character behave badly! These people tell other actual people to kill themselves. :(

It's the rage certain people have inside. They don't accept their situation and instead of yelling at the world they write on the Internet... It's an outlet... :(

Internet positivity is incredibly hard to come by. It's great that Imzy has shown up at all.

Here's hoping it catches on. I'm already finding that it is a lot of women, non-US people, LGBTQ, and fandom people. At least, if the Introductions page is anything to go by. :)

I agree that trolls can be found on both sides.
I had to unfollow my neighbor because he was so intensely "left" that it was hard for me as a Dem to continue visiting his page.

Yep, extremism is scary, doesn't matter whose extreme it is.

That was definitely a good read about trolls. Thanks for sharing. The same goes for Imzy, too! :D

I managed to sign up so if you want an invite, lemme know!

omg...I actually read that whole article (whereas I usually suffer from a bad case of TL;DR)...and I hate people. Ugh.

But you are right, it was a good read.

I'm totally going to check out Imzy :)

LOL yeah, it did not make me happy, except for Imzy, which was the bright spot. If you need an invite for Imzy, let me know!

I would love an invite!! :D

I just need an email address, if you want to message it to me, I will send you an invite. :)

Sadly, trolls can be found anywhere :(

I've never heard of Imzy before now, but it sounds interesting! One of the things I hated about Reddit was how it has such a hivemind mentality about it, and just how negative it was most of the time. It's cool that they're trying to turn it around to something better.

Yeah, it's still pretty small but I'm already feeling like it has a nice community going of people who just want to talk and share. The book group is pretty chatty! If you want an invite, let me know, they send out tons to members. :)

Please! You had me at book group :)

message me your email and I'll send you an invite. :)

That is a neat idea! Hope that site does well, I truly do.

As for trolls...there really is no such thing as political affiliation for them, that is true. They cover all politics, spectrums, races and genders, really. I guess "troll" does not always suffice, but most situations when you deal with one, it fits. Maybe super-troll or mega-troll for those who fall outside the norm...

*HUGS*

I feel like they almost yearn for the title of 'troll' now. I want to call them something new that they would hate to be known as LOL.

Maybe ogre? LOL!!

So let's just get one word that lumps them all together
Assholes? ;)

I heard about imzy today on twitter. I hope this new shiny is better than the last new shiny (tumblr)

I think even assholes would be upset by that. ;-) Like, WHOA NOW, I may be an asshole but I've never doxxed anyone!

If you want an Imzy invite, let me know. I already see a strong fandom presence on there. :)

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