This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture

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

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

trolls reveal the thin and at times nonexistent line between trolling and sensationalist corporate media.

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

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

an “indignant correction” was the ultimate goal of these so-called trollers.

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.

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