For our first module, i chose to be a part of the “#trolling” channel. This sounded like the most fun module and i was really curious as to what my group could really do with it. The first thing we did as a group was do a little research on trolling. We came up with nothing but negative trolling definitions and websites so our groups first idea was to try to find positive posts and videos. This as definitely a lot more difficult to do which is why we came up with the idea of “ProgressivenotAggresive.”
What our module focused on was a campaign that promoted positive trolling rather than the typical hurtful comments. The first portion of work i did involved a good amount of research on positive trolling and here’s what i found:
- http://www.someecards.com/entertainment/web/trolling-good-cause/
What this article focused on was the different ways people actually did good with trolling. This was a good way to start my research because it only made it more clear that people find positive trolling to be much more of an interesting find than regular trolling. What I got with this was that positive trolling is possible but that it’s not as frequent nor as original as i had thought.
2. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=positive+troll
I decided to find a basic definition of being a positive troll and of course the best definition came from urban dictionary. UD defines positive trolling as “A person who gives compliments to the point where it can be annoying or creepy.” This was definitely not what i had expected to find. Once again, this was more motivation to further our campaign of positive trolling.
3. http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Troll
As i mentioned, there was little to be found on “positive trolling” that actually had to do with positive trolling.This wiki-how page added humor to my research because it allowed me to see how evil a troll can be. Our campaign #progressivenoaggresive definitely needed to take place.
My portion of the module involved social media platforms that trolls take off, specifically, Twitter. Twitter is a place where anyone can say anything and where most people fall victim to negative trolling. For our campaign, i created an actual twitter account under “Retro80s3” to navigate the awful trolls and to see what was trending under similar topics. https://twitter.com/Retro80s3
My conclusion of this research is that positive trolls are a rare find. There is no much negativity out there that i almost feel as if it would be impossible to change. Trolls are evil! But our campaign definitely made an important impact on me because these social media platforms are communities and when the community gets behind an issue, things can change and this is my ultimate goal from our #progressivenotaggressive campaign.
Here’s what my teammates added to this campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzeIRiERwhc Positive Trolling campaign video
http://dgst101.alexanderwclegg.com/blog/uncategorized/trolling-module-reflection/ Reflection by Alex Clegg
