Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Everybody is a troll

A head, part of the Kingston Sculpture Biennial. It was standing by Monday, with the greenery serving as hair. 

People lose their heads over something online, and we sometimes react in unbecoming ways. We're quick on criticism and slow on nuance, much less empathy. Mobs are easy to join and easier to feed, and pitchforks are only a click away.
We complain that the Internet is full of trolls, but those trolls have to come from somewhere. And much like people buying things at Walmart and eating McDonalds and listening to Coldplay, the culprit is us.
It was us all along.

"NOT ME!" you say. And that would be you saying, in a way, that you are better than others. Judging. Trolling. Like this very sentence.
It's so easy to fall.

Trolls:
The moon was trolling everyone in real life yesterday over the Hudson Valley, being majestic in size and color, looking like an oversized fake moon background in a movie, and pretty much screaming, "You can watch, but you can't photograph, not with that phone, anyway."
I hope you saw it. All my photos look terrible.

Facebook is trolling everybody with its video views metric.
Everyone is trolling the company that gave everyone a raise to at least $70,000.
A reporter tried to take this professional troll who's running for president seriously.
This is how hot peppers troll your brain.
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Today's video that's trending because I'm a troll and pageviews:
'Uptown Funk' performed by the movies.

***
The Four:
* The Kingston sinkhole is a troll.
* The Kingston mayoral debate is a troll.
* The Kingston corner of Clinton and Albany avenues is a troll.
* The Kingston Sculpture Biennial is trolling with my senses.
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One (trolling man complaining about a) cat:

Yesterday's Internet, Today! trolls its free subscribers irregularly with a Google Glass photo and a little story, links from the past, four somewhat trending stories from the Freeman, a trending video and a cat.