Sociopaths love animals."
According to some, these kind of people are either Sociopaths or suffering from G.I.F.T. In fact, if you look at any articles regarding as to why someone would become an internet troll it usually states this.
- To expand on that; notice how a troll does qualify for most sociopathic traits, like manipulation, Lack of Empathy, and often lie in some cases.
- The internet makes it easier to be mean because you are hiding behind an avatar or a screen name and you're typing, not saying these mean things to the recipient in person.
Manipulation
- A troll doesn't upset you accidentally, they do it on purpose. They're aware of sensitivity and take advantage of it.
- Much like above, they couldn't care less about your feelings.
This belief is highly questionable. Firstly, not all trolls are anonymous. In fact, some celebrities and politicians are big trolls. Some of them even use fat trolling. Here
is an interesting example from Justin Roiland. Secondly, trolls are sociopaths as much as Kyle Broflovsky (an obvious slim troll) is Eric Cartman (an obvious sociopath). Yeah, sure, your anger has no effect on them (why should it have, after all?) and instead gives them pleasure, but it doesn't mean that trolls lack empathy. Just Don't Feed the Troll and be nice and wise, or you're gonna be Lured into a Trap by Les Collaborateurs which the trolls ultimately become. The only emotions that they enjoy are emotional extremes, such as fury, fear and psychotic crying. And elitism. They indeed can be very caring and loving people. They just love mocking and taunting a little too much. Besides, not every troll acts like a Jerkass. Some of them prefer irony and sarcasm over profanity. These are called "slim trolls". Sadly, it's even more humiliating, because the fault is his victim's for being a jerkass (ironic, isn't it?). All of that means that trolls act that way because their victims are hilarious, not because of them being cold-hearted or anonymous.
...All that being said, in the current ecosystem of the internet it has become nigh-impossible to distinguish a troll from someone who truly believes in the bigotry that they post, and oftentimes, they do both at once. In fact, some even theorize that the Just Ignore It attitude towards politically incorrect trolls actually enabled bigots to remain undetected and air their toxic ideologies out under the guise of just telling offensive jokes: people online just ignore the real bigot spewing hate whilst mocking the person who is rightfully somewhat upset at being the target of hate speech for "feeding the troll." Nowadays, many have adopted a zero-tolerance policy on those kinds of trolls: even if they truly are just trolling, calling them out for tone-deaf humor goes a long way to show that that kind of behavior isn't tolerated on the site.
Trolling has been the subject of erroneous reporting by British Newspapers as of mid-2012; the term "Internet trolling" they refer to is in fact cyber-abusers or internet bullies, which is far worse than trolling. In any case, a troll is someone who would probably say "I like New York Yankees. X [team on fan site] suck!" in a baseball forum, whereas a cyber-abuser is not a troll and does it for more harmful reasons, which toy with emotions sometimes. Ironically, trolling (the original kind, not the modern definition) is now on the way to becoming a Discredited Trope — although it still seems to be tolerated in football forums. In any case, the proper term for this behaviour is cyber-bullying. What British media refers to as Internet trolls is called "mobbing" or gang stalking, the practise of making false allegations or stalking in a mob- or gang-like fashion.