Trolls aren’t just fringe pranksters. They are present in replies, direct messages, comments and email inboxes, sharpening their knives for humiliation, harassing those with whom they disagree and blurring the line between a joke and a joke. threat.

The Atlantic has been studying trolling as a behavior on the Internet for decades. (First, a minute for definitions: Trolling is a centuries-old term for a common fishing technique that involves slowly dragging a line through the water to entice fish to take the bait , which The Atlantic has Also written on. This word is a possible etymological ancestor trolling in the modern language.) In a 2006 story Discussing the evolution of Wikipedia, writer and historian Marshall Poe recounted the tactics of a prominent early user known as “The Cunctator” (Latin for “procrastinator” or “delayer”), who pushed in favor of a version without hierarchy and without constraints. of the site. “Cunc,” as he was known, spammed pages, left inflammatory comments, and, most notably, incited Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger to a protracted lawsuit. modify the war. (Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002, later citing its takeover by “trolls”.)

Trolling is also a rhetorical strategy, and in this sense its examples predate the Internet. In a 2016 article titled “The first troll“, my colleague James Parker pointed out the trollish echoes in the work of Thomas De Quincey, an English writer best known for his 1821 drug addiction memoir, Confessions of an English Opium Eater. James noted how, early in his career, De Quincey praised his literary idols William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but then turned on them, hurling insults at them. Wordsworth’s appearance and Coleridge’s own dependencies; he stirred up quarrels with them until the end of his troubled life. “Never describe Wordsworth as equal in pride to Lucifer: no,” De Quincey wrote in an essay published during the trolling era. “But, if you have the opportunity to write a life of Lucifer, note that by possibility, so far as pride is concerned, he might be a sort of Wordsworth.”

Today’s online actors make De Quincey and “Cunc” look like noble satirists with a mission. The year before the 2016 US election, which introduced the concept of “Russian trolls” into public consciousness, Peter Pomerantsev, a journalist and researcher at the SNF Agora Institute, warned of a new information war, led not by “mere pranksters” but by troll farms organized, paid and supported by the government. In The AtlanticThe November 2016 cover story, “The war goes viral», Emerson T. Brooking and PW Singer detailed how social media contributed to global political upheaval (remember the Brexit campaign, amplified by legions of paid trolls and bots?). Trolls have supported all kinds of policies and ideologies, and some have even risen to power.

“I am pleased to announce that the great Elon Musk, together with the American patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Effectiveness (‘DOGE’),” said President-elect Donald Trump, described as “chief troll», wrote in a statement Tuesday. Musk (a relentless and undeniable troll) and Ramaswamy (another public figure with troll trends) could influence the professional situation of hundreds of thousands of civil servants. The proposed department’s acronym even nods to a longtime Musk favorite, the cryptocurrency DogeCoin, which itself started as a joke.

Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, is expected to return to the White House as deputy chief of staff for policyis another seasoned troll. In a Profile 2018, our editor McKay Coppins observed that Miller “flips from genuine insight to playful incitement and back again.” It’s a fascinating performance to watch, but after an hour and a half in his office, I realize I’m still having trouble locating where trolling ends and true belief begins. When pressed by McKay, Miller asserted that he was not a proponent of “provocation per se” and said he believed in “constructive controversy – for the purpose of enlightenment.” Miller went on to help shape one of the cruelest policies of the first Trump administration, as Caitlin Dickerson reports in her 2022 survey to forced family separations.

Calling many powerful people in Trump’s orbit trolls should not underestimate the danger of their behavior. “Call it trolligarchy – and be convinced that its regime is inescapable,” my colleague Megan Garber. wrote last monthafter Musk appeared on a show on X hosted by Tucker Carlson (troll trends) to joke that Vice President Kamala Harris is not worth the effort of being assassinated. “Life under trolligarchy requires constant acts of micro-translation,” says Megan. “Did she mean it?” Was he joking? Were they lying? As trolling becomes both a path to power and a part of daily life, burnout can set in. Fatigue causes numbness, a disconnection. And then the trolls will really have won.