Similarly, cultural aberration is only intelligible in the context of an existing social system.

trolls are born of and embedded within dominant institutions and tropes,

the fact that online trolling is par for the mainstream cultural course.

trolls’ simultaneously symbiotic and exploitative relationship to mainstream culture,

snapping its audience to attention, either by activating emotional investment or by forwarding a claim so outrageous that one cannot help but engage in a dialogue.

Trolls believe that nothing should be taken seriously, and therefore regard public displays of sentimentality, political conviction, and/or ideological rigidity as a call to trolling arms.

Like a spiteful housecat whose sole interest seems to be property damage, trolls take perverse joy in ruining complete strangers’ days.

trolling is, or at least can be, an extremely effective rhetorical strategy.

Mary Douglas’s exploration of the related concepts of dirt and taboo.