fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6432 ]

[ SECRET POST #6432 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6432 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Another Eden]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #919.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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05. https://i.imgur.com/PndpmzR.png

I wish more people understood was sealioning was. I see people just go back and forth with a troll who is doing it and I just want to shake them.

Might help if the term weren't completely cryptic. It's a useful idea, but the connection between the word and people's previous association with "sealion" is completely nonexistent. "But you'd know if you read this one page from this one, obscure webcomic. And everyone should!" just seems like a very weak argument.

This gives me flashbacks to being a baby autistic and having people call everything I said as "talking back" or being, uh, "deliberately offensive."

Right, and I think that's where broad definitions of trolling run into trouble, because a lot of people treat disliking or being offended by someone as a sign that that person is deliberately trying to upset them. And if that person tries their best to be civil, then that's treated as just a different kind of trolling. It basically results in a situation where anyone who has a different view from you can be labeled a troll.

I actually saw an example of this today in a discussion of, all things, whether or not it's a good idea to give formula to a kid over the age of 1. Poster One took the position that it was fine; Poster Two thought this ridiculous. Poster Two wound up accusing Poster One of being not only a troll, but a pervert, because they just got so angry that Poster One was disagreeing with them.

DA

That's an amazing example, but I can totally see it. People who are convinced their point of view is right and anyone who disagrees must be doing it for some nefarious, hidden reason derail so many conversations.

When I read someone like that, I'm often like "I see disagreement upsets you, but I didn't learn anything about anything from reading what you wrote, other than that you have an opinion and you're dogmatic about it."

I think it's true that people who lack intent to be trolls can engage in behavior indistinguishable from trolling. I think it's also true that people are often called trolls when they lack intent to be trolls.

OP seems to be talking about people who do trollish things, get called a troll, then proclaim they necessarily aren't trolls and cannot possibly be trolling just because they 100% meant what they said, though. When it's more complicated than that and time/place/context matters.

e.g. someone posts a love and positivity thread for some fandom here, encourages people to post what they love about it, and someone goes in there and talks about how much they hate something. They might believe it and mean it and truly hate the fandom but they're trolling and no amount of claiming these are their real feelings is going to make their behavior not trolling.

Re: the second paragraph that's also the feeling I got.

Lots of people take "trolls are disingenuous" too directly and think it means that "trolls are outright liars" or "trolls don't REALLY mean what they say" - when the disingenuous part can be where they choose to say something, how they choose to say it, and to whom they say it instead.

Come in here blaring 'Trump 2024 fuck womens rights sips cat ladies' tears' and even if you mean it for realsies with your tiny little heart, the time and place you chose to do that is deliberate af and you knew the reaction you were looking for.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2024-08-16 18:28 (UTC) - Expand

Some folks definitely are clueless because they weren't educated in the social sense, and don't understand that there's a time and place for everything. I don't think those people are trolls, just ignorant or inconsiderate.

A troll to me would be someone who is making inflammatory statements to be assholish and upset others. Maybe the degree to which they believe what they're saying may vary, but the goal is to upset others and not to have any resolution or understanding of the other side.

Of course, nontrolls are also human and sometimes get passionate in the heat of the moment and want to maybe "punish" the other side for their view, and maybe that leads to trollish sounding statements. But I don't think that by itself necessarily makes them a troll (because we all have the capacity to lose our tempers and/or be mean to someone else). If they were to later, say, infiltrate a comm with views they find disgusting for the sake of pissing off the group, then THAT would make them a troll. If they show up week after week *enjoying* upset reactions to the things they say, with no olive branches extended on their part, then IMO they're a troll.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2024-08-16 18:44 (UTC) - Expand

I've decided that I don't have to care about stuff like that. Not my problem.

You think "boo hoo, how dare you call me a troll" isn't trolling?

I miss Trollometer.

(They once said my trolling was so cold it was “dry ice.”)

This secret has some Richard Dawkins vibes to it, at least from where I'm sitting.

Doesn't matter how you identify, you're still X?

AYRT

Kind of. I was thinking more about the shifting connotations of words, as Dawkins coined the term meme: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme#:~:text=Dawkins%20initially%20defined%20meme%20as,or%20a%20unit%20of%20imitation%22.

I don't buy into the "don't know I'm being a troll" ignorance

By this point, even if I don't call someone a troll, if they're acting like a troll I usually ignore/stop engaging. Trolls revel in engagement and the moment they have you going back and forth with them, it'll just be a self-defeating waste of words.

I'm finally free from FS. I have no urge to comment or make secrets. Whoever got offended by the things I had to say and called me a troll - congratulations! Be happy that one more person will never disagree with anything on fandom secrets. I was called a troll both for my comments and for my secrets.

I'm slightly sad that 10+ years era of coming here comes to an end. But I feel genuinely hurt by many interactions here lately and also disagree with the moderation. It's an echo chamber and anyone who disagrees is a troll. OP thinks they have a right to judge others, to curse and make them shut up because they're 'trolling'. Well, OP and other rude or just indiferent "not my drama, move along" anons, you can be happy that you are able to hurt and drive away people.

Do continue to call out any disagreement as trolling. If you get offended it's because the other people are trolling. Then you have a moral high ground to call out their bullshit, to make sexual remarks about them, to tell them shut up and leave fs. Do go on, OP. It works.

I do want to thank people that I talked to during the years here. People that recced me some very cool Media and that were down to having fun in the comments, making me check if the post was up and to come back to days old discussions. I think none of them will be here to see it... I won't make a secret out of this comment because those people have left fs and will not see this even as an image. I wish them well. I'm a person of habbit and I am slow to abandon sites that I used to visit for so long. But there's no love for fs left in me.

I was never called a troll before FS.

Sorry to see you go, anon. For what it's worth, a lot of the time when I see one anon accuse another of trolling on this comm, it seems like complete bullshit to me. When it isn't an obvious attempt at silencing them.

People here are quick to try to tell me the big social media sites are worse, but I don't frequent any of those. I hope you find places you like better.

thanks! The most active is Discord rn. It's nice.

sa
I had a relapse today. Then I visited the sexual harassement threads, the other asshole threads and am good again. What a relief. I hate fs as it is now and it hasn't changed.

Yeah, I agree that it's very annoying for people to say that they aren't trolling because it's their actual opinion, because that doesn't exonerate you from trolling (you could still be saying the opinion because you *know* it will make people mad and start a fight). Plus, any troll can falsely claim that they are being sincere and are not being deliberately provocative (this tactic is called sealioning). It doesn't mean people have to *believe* them when they say that.

But also, I think there is a line of reasonableness (in terms of ideological positions, irresponsible misinformation, and/or tone) that, when crossed, it should not matter whether someone is "trolling" or not -- that behavior should just not be cool / not be tolerated whether it's intentionally provocative or unintentionally provocative, whether it's a sincere belief or a devil's advocate position. On F!S, it is ALSO a problem that people who don't have the right vocabulary (please, let's bring back the concept of "flaming"!) will accuse anyone who has crossed that reasonableness line of being a "troll," or just as good as one. That is not accurate either, and just leads to people muddying up the definition of troll, too! If something has reached the point of "hey, I don't care if you're a troll or not, you should know better than to post this" then I don't think flinging around the word "troll" is really the right/responsible response.

Especially since no one except the troll/inflammatory poster knows whether they are "deliberately trying to offend or get a rise out of others." Sometimes you can kind of infer from the behavior pattern (e.g. if they are choosing selectively people to respond to rather than responding to everyone who disagrees with them), but... Poe's Law is a thing. It is famously difficult to tell a sincere person from an insincere person on the internet.

So yeah, I definitely agree that "I'm not a troll, I actually do believe the inflammatory thing I just said" is a non-response that doesn't understand what trolling means. But I also think F!S needs to do a better job of distinguishing between, "This smells like a troll. Do not engage," vs. adding more fuel to the fire by saying, "This position/comment is so fucking bad/offensive, you have *got* to be a troll." That is a misunderstanding of the concept of trolling, too. The poster is not necessarily trolling -- they are being (unintentionally or not) inflammatory. That's a different thing entirely, and I feel like people use "trolling" when they mean "flaming."

One of my new favorite reaction images come from r/GrimDank (40k meme sub) that reads "What if it isn't bait? What if it truly is my unfiltered dogshit opinion, huh? What then?"

Disagreed with this when it was in the 'secrets you want someone else to make,' and still do. "Troll" is a value judgment based on someone's behavior: a claim they're saying what they say just to upset people. And anons say it as an argument to the other people around - to stop listening to them or talking to them.

That definition of troll is useful because it gives people in F!S a way to disengage from people who come here to spoil other people's enjoyment of the space, while NOT making "troll" such a catch-all term that anyone can be accused of it for any reason. Which is the obvious pitfall of broadening the term to "anything 'intentionally' inflammatory."

You're not a mind-reader. You can't know the other person is saying something that makes you angry BECAUSE they want you to get angry. It's not that people "don't grasp" your favored definition of what a troll is, it just gets very limited traction here. Because arguments that consist of

-"I think A,"
-"I think B,"
-"you're a troll!"
-"no, I really do think B, for [reasons],"
-"why haven't you shut up already, no one can just deny they're a troll!!"

... are deathly boring. While arguments that involve people getting into why they think what they think can bring up stuff about fandom and canon that deepen engagement with the story. A space where the only people who can interact comfortably are the ones who agree with each other is missing a lot.

Not OP/DA

My interactions with commenters on here lately have been more along the lines of

Person A: [opinion]

Person B: I'm going to make a point about something tangentially related

Person A: That wasn't my point. I meant [clarification]

Person B: Why are you getting mad that I don't agree with you? This is the townsquare of ideas, and your defensive response will not quiet the thought leaders of today at Dreamwidth!

and then maybe a couple other people will come to either make fun of/back up one or the other's comment

And I'm tired of responding with coddling affirmation that I hear what they're saying when they didn't give any shits that they misconstrued my original point and got antagonistic really fast.

So these days, if I post a comment and someone responds, I usually don't respond.

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