Erik

Mar 192019
 

Mislabeled Political Twitter Trolls to Political Protesters

In my work on trying to uncover what trolling is, who labels it, and who is mislabeled as a troll. I have come across several parallels to the real world and I believe that the attributed I described a typical mislabeled troll with is shared with protesters. Both parties involved attempt desperate ways to grab attention for various political purposes. These shared attributes between genres provide much leeway to translate smoothly between the two.

Political Twitter Fights to Child-Like Arguments

With more and more Twitter fights breaking out these days one would imagine argument styles would have evolved into a more intellectual debate, but no. The opposite has pretty much occurred with argument styles becoming even more child-like than it has been in the past. Worst yet this argument style will be praised by people that support the same thing as the person who said it. Sometimes in a reply section on Twitter it can just look like a bunch of children bickering and pointing fingers, making one think “Is this how far we have come?”

Who Gets to Decide What’s Trolling?

 Posted by on Fri, 3/1 at 11:27am  proposal  No Responses »
Mar 012019
 

Twitter over time has become a largely political platform where many people spread their views and opinions. With the wide variety of views comes disagreement producing vile arguments that feature what is deemed trolling. In the political sphere of twitter there is no universal agreement on what type of political tweet is considered trolling, yet many times there are those who are labeled trolls, but who is deciding this? It is a degrading thing to be considered a troll that hurts credibility and effects how seriously one is taken. Because of this, it is a serious thing to be considered a troll. When a political argument is raging in a twitter comment section there is always one side that has the majority rule over the argument, depending on if it is a conservative or liberal person’s tweet that is being replied to. In these battles there are many ways people try to get their points across and doing so shows their biases in one way or another. Depending on the majority side in the comment section they will label the minority voice in that section as a troll if their opinion is far in the opposite direction. This system at play here is frequent on twitter and it mirrors how society deals with the “minority” in different ways, by dismissing and treating certain people as less than them. Not only one side is guilty of this, there are many instances where both liberals and conservatives take part in dismissing the minority opinion as a troll by joining the mob mentality. Instead of considering all aspects of what the person may say and why they are saying it in such a shocking or eye-catching way. Shock factor in these scenarios are sometimes the only way to get the attention of people on twitter who will not consider a different side.

This paper will look at the similarities between how political twitter labels and dismisses trolls to how people tend to dismiss others in real life. There are countless political debates happening in the world right now where this can be applied to and analyzed. A big problem is that people in society are starting to listen to each other less and less, and the people that think they can label trolls adds more to that.

Pinpointing Trolling

 Posted by on Fri, 2/22 at 11:28am  subject-pos take 2  No Responses »
Feb 222019
 

Subject: Trolling is prevalent on Twitter, but it is often mislabeled.

  • Point of significance: Not all tweets that anger someone are considered trolling, sometimes it’s just a divisive tweet that showcases different views.

Subject: Arguments on twitter are not considered trolling.

  • Point of significance: Arguments on twitter are born out of disagreement and involve both people trying to prove their point. It is almost impossible to argue with a troll on twitter because of their irrational nature, it would be basically yelling at a brick wall.

Subject: Troll tweets tend to derail the conversation being had in some way, shape, or form.

  • Point of significance: They create a shock factor that is intended to offend and destroy the topic of the tweet being discussed.

Overarching point: There is a difference between controversial arguing tweets, that one finds offensive, and trolling.

Prompt: What is considered trolling on Twitter, and what is simply a differing opinion that someone takes offense to?

Subjects and POS of Twitter Trolling

 Posted by on Wed, 2/20 at 11:28am  subject-POS  No Responses »
Feb 202019
 

Subject: Trolling tweets are born out of a passionate anger one feels

  • Point of significance: This swell of emotion is then projected on to someone else on twitter that usually won’t respond hurtfully

Subject: Attention the harshness their tweets is yearned for by trolls.

  • point of significance: To make sure that the intended person sees the insult a troll performs many strategies to grab one’s attention, such as spamming.

Subject: The trolling tweets stop if a lot of people notice and respond cruelly.

  • Point of significance: Though trolling tweets are intended to be noticed and hurt someone, it is not usually expected by the troll for an overwhelming amount of people to attack them back, like if a famous person responds publicly and the blowback from that is massive.

Overarching point: Trolls, especially ones that use profile pictures of themselves, want the content of what they say to be noticed, but they themselves don’t want to be noticed.

Prompt: What are the motives that make a person take part in trolling, and when to stop trolling?

Feb 132019
 

On Twitter, trolling is a type of reply to a tweet that tries to create a negative emotion to swell up within the person with whom the trolling is directed towards. A regular reply to a tweet is harmless to one’s emotions, usually an understandable opinion or statement, and is responding to the content of the tweet and nothing more. A troll reply is used to annoy, anger, or sadden someone on Twitter, it is usually off-topic and a personal attack.

Feb 062019
 

Identify and Describe Patterns in the Genre’s Features

  1. What content is typically included or excluded? How is the content treated? What sorts of examples are used? What counts as evidence (personal testimony, facts, etc.)?

…Content in this genre of comment sections is usually treated with little attention or respect. Since anybody from anywhere can say anything with a comment they are to be taken with a grain of salt.

  1. What rhetorical appeals are used? What appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos appear?

… The pathos appeal is a person’s reaction to the post they will comment on the post may invoke an emotion in them that they can not bottle up and must express their opinion. Credibility is difficult to find in a comment section, which makes the ethos appeal tough to get behind here.  The appeal to logos in comment sections may be considered nonexistent if you are a person who believes nothing from random people online, and that is smart for the most part but there are those few comments that provide a well-balanced argument of some sort, it is rare though.

  1. How are texts in the genres structured? What are their parts, and how are they organized?

…The texts in a comment section usually range from messy and without grammar to a little grammar but still pretty messy.

  1. In what format are texts of this genre presented? What layout or appearance is common? How long/big is a typical text in this genre?

…Usually a good comment is one sentence, depending on the subject material at hand it varies. A very serious video and YouTube can contain very long comments, but then there are places like Twitter where a person a certain character count they can use.

  1. What types of “sentences” do texts in the genre typically use? How long are they? Are they simple or complex, passive or active? Are the sentences varied? Do they share a certain style?

…Simple sentences are used dominantly in this genre, typically they lack punctuation and tend to focus on an argument or a joke without grammar.

  1. What diction is most common? What types of words (or symbols, images, etc.) are most frequent? Is a type of jargon used? Is slang used? How would you describe a typical writer’s tone?

…Depending on the media platform it varies. Twitter replies frequently use pictures, gifs, or memes in their responses to a tweet, and a well-received reply usually carries a tone of humor, whether it is sarcasm or taunting. Instagram, specifically YouTube, comment sections can only use text in their comments, so this leads to more carefully crafted comments to get their point and tone across.

  1. In what format are texts of this genre presented? What layout or appearance is common? How long is a typical text in this genre?

…The texts are very argument forward and they are usually fairly short depending on the subject material.

Analyze What These Patterns Reveal About the Situation and Scene

  1. What do these patterns reveal about the genre, its situation, and the people who use it?

… There is a certain level of prestige and respect rewarded amongst a popular comment section. The lowest of the low are deemed “trolls” and they typically spam comments or say something so vulgar and lacking wit that they are ignored, usually. The people who have a normal comment that isn’t drastic or over the top may get some feedback back nothing more, they are respectable. A drastic over the top comment that has something to do with the post above gets the most attention and positive feedback in a comment section, these types of commenters get the most respect.

  • How is the subject of the genre treated? What content is considered most important? What content (topics or details) is ignored?

…The most important content in this genre is the original post in which the comments are in reply to, without an original post this genre doesn’t exist for there is nothing for the commenters to talk about. Usually the personal bias from any individual commenter plays a big role in how the content is shaped, different commenters ignore different types of content.

  • What values, beliefs, goals, and assumptions are revealed through the genre’s patterns?

…One’s own values and beliefs are expressed through their own comment in this genre, meaning that there are A LOT of opinions being expressed in every comment section on every media platform.

  • What actions does the genre enable? What actions does the genre constrain??

…This genre enables an unlimited amount of written actions people can use against each other, whether it may be in a kind way or a hurtful way, and it is usually used in a hurtful way across all media platforms. One common constraint amongst all platforms is the ability to flag someone’s comment if it is hurtful or offends, but rarely does the media platform actually take it down.  Twitter may be the only platform that restrains something in their comments with a character count for tweets. But other than that, the only there aren’t many other constraints for this genre.

Feb 022019
 

Introduce Your Genre

  1. Identify your tentative “underappreciated” genre (or subgenre)

… An underappreciated genre that I find interesting to explore is Comment Sections. (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, ect;)

  1. What is interesting to you about this genre? Or, why might it be significant or otherwise worth paying attention to?

… I find this genre to be fascinating because of the wide variety of responses everyday people post in reply to a viral video or tweet. From the many internet “trolls” that comment something vile that I might wince at to a person commenting something extremely clever and funny that can so often get me to laugh. One never knows what a comment section may hold when going into it, but that unpredictability can capture my attention for several minutes at a time.

  1. Tentatively, define/describe your corpus (collection of texts/examples)

…Comment Sections are the responses to popular or unpopular tweets, Youtube videos, and more. Twitter’s comment section is typically called a “thread” or “replies” but its comment section the same thing as all this other media. Although there are many places to pull comments from, they are all essentially the same depending on the response to the original post.

  1. Provide links (and/or titles) of five samples. (Try to gather samples from more than one “place” [or type] in order to obtain a diverse and accurate representation of the genre. For now, choose samples without significant deviations).

… Example 1 https://youtu.be/i7lA4OSbvZM  The comment section here makes a very uncomfortable video featuring Kevin Spacey funny due to witty ways the commenters poke fun at Spacey in many creative ways. Example 2 https://youtu.be/KWcmZ8hozvU This video’s comment section showcases some of the most vile comments, it is filled with hate and arguing. Comment sections like this are like looking under a band aid, it’s going to be gross but it’s so tempting to look. Example 3 https://twitter.com/kelllicopter/status/1089329823518883841 Occasionally a tweet will go viral due to the tweeter challenging the commenters, or repliers, to do something out of the norm leading to some pretty funny replies like in this tweet here. An interactive approach to the comment section. Example 4 https://twitter.com/ArianaGrande/status/1089369476305317889 Comment sections filled with loyal fans, like in this case, are typically just packed with various ways of praising tweeter in some fashion. Some may like looking through this type, but I don’t typically get into this necessarily. Example 5 https://youtu.be/BmErRm-vApI another YouTube comment section, but this time it provides the feedback of many commenters who, while listening to this sad song, are in a somber state. This type of comment section is rare to find where many are trying to be uplifting or fragile creating a sense of harmony between each commenter.

 

Describe the Context

  1. Setting: Where (in what context or medium) does the genre appear? How and when is it used? With what other genres does this genre interact? How?

… This genre specifically takes place on the internet, mostly on social media platforms. It is accessed pretty much via phone computer, tablet, ect;. Comment sections interact with a countless number of genres that exist on the internet.

  1. Subject: What topics, issues, ideas, etc. are common to this genre? When people use this genre, what are they communicating about?

… The two most prevalent uses in this genre would be politics and sports, these two have probably the most active commenters around. Usually, especially when it comes to politics, it is a platform where they can express their opinion about the tweet or video in which they are commenting under. Also, a fair number of commenters are trying to compete to give the most clever response so that maybe they can have their few moments of recognition.

  1. Writers: Who writes the texts in this genre? Are multiple writers possible? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must writers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do writers write the genre (e.g., in teams, on a computer, in a rush, for their profession? for fun?)?

… Anybody who has an account in one of these media platforms can participate in this genre, they are essentially the peanut gallery who can sometimes come up with a comment that can outshine the post they are responding to. Usually to excel at being a commenter one must either have a great argument style or be witty or as hell. Writers of this use computers, phones, tablets, ect;

  1. Readers: Who reads the texts in this genre? Is there more than one type of reader for this genre? What roles do they perform? What characteristics must readers of this genre possess? Under what circumstances do readers read the genre (e.g., at their leisure, on the run, in waiting rooms)?

…People scrolling through the internet in various fashions are the readers for this genre, and the readers have a wide range of reasons in why they want to venture forth into the comment section. Readers are there for either support, to like or respond to the comment with praise. Or the reader despises a certain comment and answers back with a counter argument of some sort. Readers must be prepared for potentially graphic material thick skin is required, so the ability to not be offended or grossed. An open mind would also be a very helpful characteristic to possess in a comment section, there will be many opinions thrown at you. A reader must not let anger overcome them leading to a reply that could result in an online fight starting, usually resulting in being made fun of by the other commenters. Readers chose what time works best for them to explore a comment section. Personally, when I am trying to pass time laughing at people I’ll journey in a comment section of some sort.

  1. Exigency/Purpose(s): Why do writers write this genre, and why do readers read it? What purposes does the genre fulfill for the people who use it?

…Normally commenters write to express their taste or distaste of a post or a comment underneath the post that they have just come across, but sometimes commenters strive for the funniest response. Readers typically read comments because they want to expand on their entertainment that the post provided for them, or they want to see the post that they hated be justified by some people who share their thoughts. Curiosity is also a big factor in why people look at comments, especially when a person sees a controversial post that shows that there is a big number of comments below it.