A blogger at Psychology Today tries to figure it out:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...internet-troll

I, for one, do not find her theory at all unpersuasive.

Are these questions serious?

I don't know what a shock website is and I don't play games. I do however enjoy saying shocking or uncomfortable things on forums and in real life. I will dig at things that people believe are pure as those things that actually are rarely put themselves in a position to be shot at.

i like the picture, heh.
zombie with an iphone.
am i a troll now?

i think the use of the word troll(ing) is so widespread - it can be anything starting from slightly unfriendly or arrogant responses.

heck, where did you get that source?that in itself makes me want to become a troll.

I think they are making a soup with trolls, griefers, gore hounds, and psychopaths in it.

I am not and have never been a griefer. In fact, I have never dealt with a griefer myself even tho I used to game a lot. A griefer is NOT a troll BTW.

I have never linked to any shock websites, I'm not a gore hound, but I know some people are. I recommend they see a psychologist.

As for trolling, well, I used to troll a lot more than I do now. Seems people have lost their sense of humor completely. There are different types of trolls tho. The usual purpose of the troll is to piss off the other party, but also (if you are a masterful troll) to get them to think a bit (if they are capable, which is rare nowadays). In general, subjects that are worth trolling are things that people firmly believe in without any support. Controversial or formerly controversial but now accepted topics also work well. There are also wild trolls who just troll anything. That is not as fun. Why is it fun ? Because I like to see people's reactions ... I consider it more of a psychological study of people It's like in those interviews where they ask you unusual questions to see how you deal with them.

I don't troll in real life, because I don't want to get physically assaulted.

I specifically avoid political/religious topics, because I can't help but troll them. They are firmly held or controversial or formerly controversial. The best topics to troll.

3rd Newton law is everywhere. Trolls are no exception.

The actual source appears to be this study: Trolls just want to have fun. Though you have to shell out $39.95 to read it...

Sadism, really ? Whatever happened to "sticks and stones can break my bones ..." ? Also correlation is not causation.

"...words will never hurt me"? That's always been BS.

Yes.

Right, well nobody else's trolling has ever hurt me. It may annoy me sometimes, but once I recognize that it is a troll I just laugh it off and move on. I doubt anyone is severely psychologically traumatized by trolling from people they never even see. Maybe on facebook and twitter it would be more of a problem because they are connected to people you may actually know.

Life, Limb, or eyesight is my motto, those things make my give a sh*t meter move all else is just noise to be delt with when or if I need to.

When you strip away the psycho-babble, what the blogger was saying is that trolls enjoy hurting people for fun.

"Oh, look how these babies cry when they are squeezed!"

I haven't heard it here yet, but I've heard it elsewhere.

And what I'm saying is that people's skins are way too thin. Why should they even care about what some troll says ?

Some persons are more sensitive than others. People are different.

Some of us may be able to ignore nastiness more effectively than others, but I don't think that having that ability makes nasty persons any less nasty.