CAMBRIDGE, MA—Harvard social scientists recently discovered that virtually all internet trolls are actually perfectly normal and well-adjusted individuals when not online.
Trolling is a practice of using the anonymity of internet communications and social profiles to verbally attack, bully, insult, and otherwise do emotional harm to others. This is commonly done on social media and in comments sections where people share their thoughts or creative works for others to enjoy and evaluation. Trolls are known to be needlessly cruel in their evaluations, and it was long-suspected that their total lack of tact or consideration for other peoples' feelings was due to past traumas inflicted on them as children. However, this new study suggests that that is not at all the case.
Jezibel Mason, 51, who wrote the report about the research, explains, "To our surprise, we found that not one of the cruel and sadistic trolls was anything but healthy, physically fit, in a happy relationship, gainfully employed in a fulfilling career, well-liked by their peers, had a happy childhood, and the males all had normal-sized genitalia."
Although it is difficult for many people to understand why such well-adjusted adults would spend their leisure time in fruitless endeavors to berate and disparage total strangers if not for some childhood trauma, such as having been abused, bullied, mocked, or ostracized, it is apparently possible.
"It is somewhat mysterious how a person who does not secretly loathe themselves would take to internet trolling, given that it is a needlessly counterproductive activity. We really expected to find that the trolls would be simmering in insecurities, personal shortcomings, past failures, and multiple past rejections, but boy were we wrong," said Mason, an experimental psychologist.
The researchers are unsure what to make of the results, as they have never heard of such a thing as a perfectly non-pathological person engaging in what is clearly psychopathic behavior, but it does now seem like it occurs all the time.
"Perhaps this means that people on the receiving end of such hateful and useless comments should pay more attention to them," noted Mason, "as they may not come from a place of self-hatred and the desire to spread misery everywhere after daddy didn't make it to their 4th birthday party. Only a nutcase would do that, right?"