The Psychology of Trolls: How Modern Culture Breeds Emotional Detachment

We tend to contrast trolls with “decent” online users, as if trolls are a special category of insensitive people with no moral boundaries. But biting comments and outrageous memes are a natural product of internet culture, which in turn shapes the human psyche. Literary scholar Whitney Phillips wrote the book “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”, where she explores how media turn tragedies into spectacles, how social media filters make us numb to information we don’t care about, and how traditions of androcentrism in Western philosophy influence the way we argue online.

Learning by Example: The Roots of Troll Behavior

One of the most recognizable anti-drug PSAs from the 1980s depicted a tense conversation between a father and son. The father, waving a box of drug paraphernalia found among his son’s things, demands an explanation. “Who taught you how to do this?” he asks, voice trembling. “You, all right? I learned it by watching you,” the son replies. The camera lingers on the father’s shocked face. “Parents who use drugs have children who use drugs,” the voiceover declares.

Despite the melodrama and questionable messaging, the ad’s core argument-that parents shouldn’t forget the consequences of their own actions-applies directly to the analysis of trolls. Reflexively condemning trolling ignores the fact that troll behavior parallels many culturally accepted logics. Trolls may take these logics to grotesque extremes, but ultimately, their actions intersect with the same cultural systems that define the norm. This casts a shadow not only on trolls, but on the systems they exploit.

The Troll Mask: Cultural Origins

Building on previous discussions of the “troll mask,” let’s examine the cultural features that forged it. We’ll also look at how trolls reflect and highlight traditional behavioral norms and attitudes-sometimes exposing their unpleasant aspects. Three elements are considered: the relationship between media coverage, emotional distancing, and dark humor; how trolling mimics the logic of social networks; and the behavioral consequences of political upheaval.

Garbage Everywhere: Media, Tragedy, and Humor

The first factor supporting the troll mask is the link between media coverage and dissociative humor. In her work “Jokes That Follow Disaster Coverage in the Age of Global Television”, Christie Davies argues that laughter in the face of violence or tragedy is less about callousness and more about specific historical and technological conditions. “Sick” humor has existed since ancient times, at least since the invention of writing, but even the darkest old jokes never took the form of today’s disaster jokes. While people have always commented on terrible news, these comments never formed the traceable joke cycles we see now-groups of jokes that arise in response to a tragedy, evolve, and eventually fade away. Davies claims this type of humor only became prominent after events were widely popularized by cinema.

According to Davies, the first large-scale joke cycle of this kind followed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, coinciding with what she calls “the total victory of television.” She gives three reasons for this connection. First, TV news about disasters is framed by “nonsense,” creating a bizarre context that complicates or even prevents normal human empathy. Second, television blurs the line between reality and fiction. Live broadcasts of disasters merge with cinematic images, making it hard for viewers to believe in the reality of what they’re seeing and dulling the impact of real tragedy. Finally, televised tragedy is mediated by space, time, and geography, making emotional detachment easier-and sometimes even necessary-thus enabling cynical or “humorous” responses.

Although Davies focuses on television, her analysis applies directly to the modern internet. Today’s internet, more chaotic than any variety show, further erases the boundaries between reality and fantasy, distancing viewers from what they see. The main point remains: media coverage breeds emotional distancing, which in turn enables detached, fetishistic humor-especially relevant in the context of trolling.

9/11 and the Fetishization of Tragedy

Consider trolls’ fetishistic approach to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Popular memes and GIFs include wrestlers smashing the Twin Towers, Will Smith tap dancing in front of the falling towers, Kanye West addressing the towers with “Yo, Al-Qaeda, I’mma let you finish, but the War of 1812 was the best attack on America of all time!”, Nyan Cat crashing into the towers with the caption “Never Forget,” and more. News footage is paired with grotesque captions, ironic references, and intentionally bad puns (“Just think what those people on the planes went through!-Through the buildings?” “9/11 Americans won’t get this joke”), as well as declarations of ironic detachment (“That was a bit too dramatic,” under the famous photo of the falling man).

While trolling 9/11 may seem especially heartless, it’s a striking example of the interplay between troll humor and media coverage of tragedy. Once online, videos and photos of the attacks were swept up in a whirlpool of absurd content, from cute cats to hardcore porn, plus a barrage of ads. If TV coverage of the attacks emotionally distanced viewers, as folklorist Bill Ellis wrote, then digitized reposts did so even more.

Trolls’ ability to turn artifacts into visual jokes further widens this emotional gap. Unlike those who saw 9/11 live, trolls had nearly 15 years to manipulate footage for their own purposes-most notably, to combine death and destruction with pop culture iconography. The more these images were removed from context and the more cluttered the audience’s field of vision became, the more likely they were to become meme fodder, increasing emotional distance and attracting trolls.

Thus, trolls’ use of 9/11 is not surprising-it’s a direct result of the chaos and emotional fragmentation created by the modern media landscape, what could be called “the total victory of the Internet.” In this sense, trolls’ games with tragedy are what happens when current events become “content”-a term often (and cynically) used in the blogosphere to describe the patchwork of digital junk that can be shared, remixed, and monetized through advertising.

Trolling and Filter Bubbles

The endless, disjointed flow of digital information isn’t the only condition for the emergence of the troll mask. It’s also forged from the cultural logic of social networks, which highly value-and often commodify-openness, community, and sentimentality. Trolls don’t just reject these values; they deliberately target their most visible defenders. At the same time, trolls embody and caricature even more contradictory aspects of social media culture: objectification, selective attachment, and egocentrism, all fueling the pursuit of “lulz” and shaping “proper” interaction with social media technologies.

Consider the difficulty of establishing and maintaining context online, and how the lack of context creates emotionally detached reactions (and thus, the detached, callous laughter discussed earlier). As Henry Jenkins writes, a single hotlink can detach internet content-be it home videos, family photos, or remixed soundbites-from its original context. While it’s often possible to trace the origin of most artifacts, online content is rarely presented in its full political, material, or historical context. More often, it functions as the visual equivalent of a soundbite-a few interesting seconds cut from a long conversation.

Everyone knows that TV soundbites can distort what was actually said. Similar problems arise when what people do, share, and create is appropriated by those it wasn’t intended for. Take, for example, Star Wars Kid, Scumbag Steve, Goatse, Rebecca Black, Antoine Dodson-all real people who found themselves under the online microscope, transformed-sometimes traumatically-from individuals into memes.

Despite the real people and circumstances behind each story, memes instantly turn them into grotesque caricatures-a transformation that fits perfectly with the logic of social networks. Since content is so easily separated from its creator, and information spreads rapidly (with context being lost over time), real people inevitably become characters. This isn’t about the architecture of the web, but about how content is created, shared, and used online.

Internet users are free (and even encouraged) to choose content as they wish, avoiding what they find offensive or uninteresting. The web doesn’t function as a democratizing force-it’s a portal for what Eli Pariser calls “online filter bubbles”-personalized monads that not only reflect individual choices (visiting preferred blogs, hiding posts from annoying Facebook friends, blocking unwanted followers), but also use algorithmic techniques on platforms like Google and Facebook to quietly tailor material to your preferences.

According to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, these bubbles are a benefit: “A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.” In other words, if you’re not interested in certain content, you don’t have to see it. Users can even block offensive content with plugins like “Shaved Bieber” (which blocks all references to Justin Bieber) or the Olwimpics Browser Blocker (which blocks all Olympic-related links). The ability to carefully curate your online experience is a huge privilege, allowing for standardized selective emotional attachment. Trolls take this privilege to the extreme, engaging only with content they find amusing and ignoring everything else (including their victims’ feelings). Their fetishization of “lulz” may seem alien to average users, but they’re essentially following the same cultural logic that underpins “normal” online interaction.

“The More You Resist, the Harder My Penis Gets”: Androcentrism and Competitive Discourse

Trolls prioritize cold rationality over emotion, focusing on victory-“winning”-and demonstrating dominance over opponents. This is a logical extension of androcentrism, which cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu describes as “perpetually operating, tacit, invisible prohibitive norms” that naturalize phallocentric worldviews. While androcentrism can manifest as aggressive sexism or misogyny, it’s most effective when its manifestations are seen as natural and inevitable.

Trolls’ androcentrism is most evident in their adoption of the competitive method, which feminist philosopher Janice Moulton identifies as a hallmark of Western philosophical tradition. According to Moulton, this method is about being cool, unflappable, and impeccably rational; making specific claims; testing them against counterarguments-all to defeat or otherwise surpass an opponent. While this may seem uncontroversial, the competitive method is a classic example of androcentrism, privileging “masculine” qualities (rationality, assertiveness, dominance) over “feminine” ones (emotionality, cooperation, conciliation), and marginalizing less confrontational models of discourse.

Arthur Schopenhauer’s “The Art of Controversy” perfectly outlines the competitive method. Many trolls see it as a playbook for modern trolling. Schopenhauer describes eristics as “the art of disputing in such a way as to always come out victorious, whether you are in the right or not.” He offers 38 axioms or tricks to “hack” dialectics, such as broadening your opponent’s statements to make them easier to attack, provoking anger to throw them off balance, substituting terms to distort their position, and personalizing arguments. If your opponent is strong, Schopenhauer suggests attacking their person-family, friends, finances, race, anything. If they retaliate, remind them that personal insults have no place in rational discourse, then resume your attacks.

Trolls use a similar approach, openly rejecting the search for truth in favor of victory and, more importantly, dominance. They eagerly attack those who use different rhetoric-“soft,” feminized thinkers. For trolls, “softness” means anything emotional or less than perfectly rational; strong negative emotions like sadness or suffering (“butthurt”) are neon-lit targets. Trolls torment their victims until metaphorical blood is drawn (“The more you resist, the harder my penis gets”), then point to that blood as proof of their superiority and their victims’ weakness.

“Debate skills” (as trolls often call their methods) are not only a point of pride but also serve as built-in justification for their antagonistic behavior. If cold rationality is truly superior, then belittling and silencing the feminized Other isn’t just justified-it’s a cultural duty. Ultimately, the main difference between “normal” uses of the competitive method and modern subcultural trolling is that trolls make no effort to hide the ideological consequences and inherent sexism of their behavior.

Socrates: The Trolls’ Patron Saint

An even more telling example of trolls’ desire to align with competitive rhetoric-and, by extension, Western tradition-is their obsession with Socrates as a role model. The Encyclopedia Dramatica article on Socrates calls him “the famous Greek IRL troll before there was an internet,” crediting him with inventing trolling techniques and the science of “lulz.” The article includes a quote from Plato’s Apology, where Socrates describes himself as a gadfly, “constantly arousing, persuading, and reproaching” the citizens of Athens, with the caption “Socrates explains trolling.” The article then outlines the “famous Socratic method of trolling,” which closely resembles modern trolling patterns:

• Ask a bunch of questions about stuff nobody cares about.
• Be condescending while pretending to agree.
• “Rape” your victim with logic.
• Pretend to be objective and ignorant.
• Propose a totally crazy theory for the lulz.
• ???
• PROFIT.

As a final touch, the author jokes that Socrates’ last words were “I did it for the lulz.”

In a 2012 Huffington Post Live segment, notorious troll weev (former president of the GNAA hacker group) explained this attitude: “Socrates trolled. He was confrontational. He tried to provoke a reaction and destroy the establishment.” In the eyes of many trolls, this was the best possible outcome of trolling.

To understand why trolls want to claim Socrates as their own, consider his behavior in Plato’s Meno, which begins with the question of whether virtue can be taught. Socrates professes ignorance, while Meno repeats what he thinks are obvious truths. Instead of accepting the answer, Socrates methodically tears Meno’s arguments apart, pausing only to scold him for sophistry or make ambiguous compliments about his looks. Soon, Meno begs for mercy: “You have bewitched and enchanted me, and I am utterly at a loss; my soul and my tongue are tied.” In other words, Meno “rage-quit.” But Socrates isn’t done-he calls Meno a trickster, accuses him of cunning, and continues the discussion, even after proving his point (which he then ironically undermines).

Socrates may not have given a single answer to the question of virtue-or any other question. But by defining the boundaries of “proper” philosophy, he embodied a particular model of discourse, later called the Socratic method-a stance more than a position, a commitment to seeking answers. Trolls, in their quest for maximum lulz from the online victims they deem most deserving, push this method to the extreme of antagonism.

It’s clear why trolls see Socrates as one of their own. Even if you don’t agree that Socrates was “the original Greek IRL troll,” the fact that trolls have chosen one of the most respected and fetishized figures in Western philosophy as their intellectual mascot-whose rhetorical method is taught to every college student in the U.S.-is telling. And it’s equally telling that, while trolling is condemned, similarly antagonistic-and highly gendered-rhetorical methods are considered something every 18-year-old student should aspire to. It’s a curious double standard. Of course, trolling is more offensive, cruel, and destructive than traditional models of discourse, but as the saying goes: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.