The Modern Cyclops: The Troll

Young Otto finally tore his attention away from the latest game on Facebook, Candy Crush.  It’s appeal was amazing.  It was so simple yet addicting with its strategical game play.  He couldn't believe he was able to tear his eyes away from the game to the Facebook menu at the top of the screen.  He attributed his escape by the Facebook notifications that constantly nagged at him.  The soft ping constantly hounded him, and all of the notifications were Pokes from his friends.  He quickly went to his messages and sent one to his friends for dragging him away from the intoxicating experience that was Candy Crush.  He went to his wall and began to examine the constant news of the world around him.  A girl broke up with her boyfriend.  Cartman was bagging on Kyle again.  Fred and Lisa posted pictures from their recent family reunion.  And then Otto found a link posted by Jeremy.  What was it? It seemed to link to a site called “Reddit.”  Jeremy had also posted some text along with the link.  It read, “For those who love humor on the internet!”  Otto was intrigued.  He opened the link in another tab and began to explore.

Otto found many links adorning the new page.  “Pretty much my favorite photoshopped picture of all time.”  “I sent my parents a picture of the sunset in Japan. They sent me a picture 20 minutes later of the sunrise from Florida.”  They were accompanied by pictures next to the links, and Otto found himself entangled in a feeling of adorableness.  He opened both in more new tabs.  He scrolled through the Photoshop link first.  He found himself looking at an adorable penguin with the head changed from that of a penguin to that of an orca.  Otto’s eyes lit up, and he opened his mouth to “awww” at the sight in front of him.  He scrolled down to find responses to the picture.  Many people had the same reaction he had, and others felt to post more pictures and links to other subreddits and pictures.  Otto decided to open some of these links in even more tabs, caught up in fascination with the new site he discovered.

Otto had many tabs opened on Google Chrome.  The only sight on each tab was the favicon for a site showing what sites were open in which tab.  He clicked onto another tab he had opened earlier, one discussing drug use.  He started to read through the subreddit with a grand smile upon his face and his eyes wide open like a child receiving a gift.  As he ran through all of the text, some interesting posts caught his eye.  Crude language was abundant, racist thoughts flying every other sentence.  His smile fell quickly, and his eyes drew together to squint at the screen in thought.  He kept scrolling through the posts, and he began to grow horrified.  Mentions of sex grew the farther he went, and more and more raunchy did it grow.  Mentions of rape were now abundant, almost reminiscent of what one would hear during a Halo match on Xbox Live.  He couldn't bear to keep going through all of the links anymore, he needed to do something about this.

Otto created an account on Reddit.  He would make his own subreddit.  He would draw attention to himself.  He had come across a new creature in his exploration of Reddit, the troll.  The troll would draw attention to itself by the use of language.  Extremely out of place foul language, off topic posts, ignorant and bigoted ranting, and completely off-topic posts were the trolls’ norms.  Otto decided to make a difference and possibly stop some of the trolls.  He would leave after his victory, but he would not let them know who he really was.  He still knew the rule of the internet, never give your actual information to anyone. (Hi social media!)  Otto would become, troll bait.

Otto created a subreddit that he knew would draw attention quickly.  Otto would insult those who belonged to the PC master race.  The subreddit was labeled as “PC master race kisses Consoles’ ass.”  He drew people in quickly.  Many trolls came along to get at him, using many logical fallacies and threats to make him flee, delete his subreddit.  They attacked his character falsely, calling him gay, stupid, having no life, just a 12 year-old who hadn't even hit puberty.  Otto smiled to himself in satisfaction.  He made the trolls indignant, he made them enraged.  The trolls had been trolled.  They were beaten at their own game.

Otto opened a Red Bull to congratulate himself on his victory.  It was his twelfth one that night, for he drank one for every genius idea he had. He became intoxicated with the caffeine and sugar he consumed.  He lost some of the sanity he had kept while going through Reddit.  He looked back at his subreddit, it drew thousands of trolls.  They were all tricked by him.  The trolls got trolled by him, basically a newb.  He decided to make one last post.

“Hahaha!!!  All of you were trolled by the great Otto Dyson!  A newb to Reddit!  Feel shame on you all for this day you were all trolled by me!”

The trolls looked upon the new post in the subreddit.  They became more enraged, they were indignant, outraged!  However, they found the one flaw that Otto had.  The troll bait had posted his actual name.  He gave actual information of himself.  The trolls went to Facebook and searched “Otto Dyson.”  They found the name as one of the first.  This “Otto Dyson” had recently liked Reddit, and he had posted about trolling the people of Reddit.  The trolls went through Otto’s profile and found his cell phone number in his contacts.  The trolls smiled an evil smile.  They were able to contact him constantly, when he was anywhere with his cell phone.  The trolls went back to Reddit and created a subreddit.  It was titled with Otto’s cell phone number.  There was only one post on the thread.  It was an order to the people of Reddit.

“Attack.”