Troll Identification Page

Here is where you will learn to identify the different types of trolls and pick up a few simple ways to deal with them.

The “did he die?” troll:
Variations: Did he died?
Seen most often on Youtube, they have infiltrated Failblog and refuse to leave.

“FIRST!” trolls:
Obsessed with posting the first comment on a new Fail, they have absolutely no imagination and can’t risk the time required to type much beyond “first”. They shake so much with excitement at the prospect of being first they often misspell “first”. Don’t identify this species by their use of the word “first”; look for any short text or pasted material with no relevance to the Fail at the opening of a new comment section.

“LAST” trolls:
A FIRST troll without ambition, they accept that they’re too lazy to figure out when new Fails arrive and are content with having the last word. Their amusement is short-lived since comment sections never close.

Numeric trolls:
Will post the numeric placement of their comment (i.e. “Third!”, “Sixty seventh!”, etc.)

Thread Hijackers:
Are most prominent in the first thread of a Fail. They will try and post as high as possible in a fail, and will completely change the subject of a thread, most often to focus attention on themselves.

The Troll Who Doesn’t Know S/He Is A Troll:
Someone who posts bigoted, idiotic, ignorant, or unkind comments and absolutely cannot understand why their posts engender anger, scorn, or derision. Usually becomes very defensive and projects blame onto other posters.

Pseudo-Intellectual Trolls:
A troll who corrects other posters’ information, grammar, word choice, etc., and its “correction” is actually wrong. It’s even better when the original information being “corrected” was, in fact, correct in the first place.

Care Troll:
A care-troll is a troll that comes onto a blog and posts an absolutely outraged, “HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE LAUGH AT THIS THING, CAN’T YOU SEE THAT SOMEONE COULD GET HURT??” kind of message. They are usually verbally abusive towards other people.

Hate Troll (Latin: Trollus Ignoranus):
Trolls who have absolutely no problem posting prejudicial, bigoted, inflammatory comments and is unapologetic about doing so.

Vanilla Troll:
Willing to try any lame comment that elicited a response in the past, they often mimic other trolls. For example, they might post “first” hours into a Fail, or “Funny fail!” on every single Fail.

PHOTOSHOPPED!!!1! Troll:
Rather self-explanatory, this one. These trolls will cry “Photoshopped” on any photograph (and occasionally on videos) and point out pixels, shadows, or lines as evidence–usually without having any idea of how Photoshop or compression actually works.

The Attention Whore troll:

This troll posts on every thread. Every other post is theirs. When people ignore them or aren’t nice, they resort to self-pity and leave posts that say things like “Since you all hate me, I guess I’ll just leave now!” This particular troll can also be a variant of the “Thread Hijacker”. (Contributed by Brewski.)

The Spam Troll:

These are trolls who post responses on every single thread, often to every single post. Spam trolls love, above all else, to see their own words in print. It makes absolutely no difference if those words say anything meaningful, funny or interesting…such things are not important to the Spam troll. Spam trolls are liable to post such things as, “I have nothing to say here, but I’ll p0st this anyway!” or other such trivialities. Also see Attention Whore Trolls…the two are often closely related.

The Master Baiter Troll:

These are trolls who like to bait regulars into replying to their posts, but they are supremely uninterested in actually participating in the community. They seek instant gratification by posting nonsensical, irrelevant, or inflammatory messages and watching the resultant hoopla that ensues.

Product Spammer Troll:

This troll will try to get you to buy whatever it is they’re selling, via their name link. This troll may attempt to get people to click their link via misdirection, outright lies, guilt-tripping, or ridicule.

Buzzkill Troll:
Also be known as the “Killjoy Troll”, this particular species loves to spoil others’ fun by explaining exactly why a particular fail isn’t funny, or otherwise offering too much information rather than merely enjoying the humo(u)rous effect of a perceived fail. The Buzzkill troll enjoys bursting people’s bubbles and explaining why posters are stupid for thinking a fail is humo(u)rous in the first place. This is a often a result of the troll not understanding the funny him/herself and thereby failing to understand the fail. But more often, the object of the troll’s desire is to interrupt and deride others’ enjoyment.

Copypasta Troll:
These trolls enjoy copying text and pasting it into the comments box and posting it. Often, the text is long, boring, and has nothing to do with anything anyone is talking about. Sometimes the text is lewd and vulgar. It could be a YouTube vid or a Wikipedia entry. The Copypasta troll is only concerned with filling up as much space as he/she can and annoying the other posters.

Identity Troll:
These trolls steal the name and/or the avatar of other posters and post inflammatory and offensive comments. It is ridiculously easy to catch these trolls, since they post things that would never, EVER be posted by the person whose identity they have stolen. The first person to experience the Identity Troll was Loz, who had no fewer than four trolls impersonating her at one time. However, the most prevalent victim of this troll is, I believe, Arthur.

Self-Insulting Troll:
A troll who in an attempt to insult another poster ultimately ends up insulting itself. For example, if a troll posts, “Everyone who posts in these comments is stupid!”, said troll–having just posted in the comments–has admitted to being stupid under its own definition of the word.

Humo(u)rless Troll:

This is a troll who absolutely cannot see the humo(u)r in a fail and insists upon enforcing one and only meaning upon a joke–the one that takes all the humo(u)r out of it. This troll will insist over and over upon that meaning even when others point out the multiple meaning that makes it humo(u)rous. For an absolutely stellar example of this, read the comments on the Anatomy Fail.