the.com/troll
a creature that lives under bridges or beneath comment sections, depending on the century
means To deliberately provoke, bait, or harass people online with inflammatory or off-topic posts — or the person who does so; also, in older usage, the lumbering monster of Norse folklore.
from Two threads braided into one modern word. The monster comes from Old Norse 'troll,' a malevolent being of Scandinavian myth, lurking in mountains and (in later folklore) under bridges. The internet sense, however, comes from a different root: the fishing technique of 'trolling,' dragging baited lines slowly through the water to see what bites — itself from Old French 'troller,' to wander or rove in search of game. Early internet users spoke of 'trolling for newbies,' baiting the gullible — and the happy coincidence with the bridge-dwelling beast meant the two meanings collapsed gleefully into one.
- origin
- Norse myth predates internet trolls by a millennium
- turned to stone
- Tolkien's trolls petrify in sunlight, like daylight truth
- fishing term
- Trolling means dragging bait slowly to provoke a bite
- legal trolls
- Patent trolls sue without ever building anything
- toll bridge
- The bridge-dweller demands payment, just like its etymology hints
internet research agency — russian troll farm that created thousands of fake social media accounts during 2016 us election