What is "Trolling"?

Trolling is a kind of prank and a lost art form, full of failed attempts and people who don't even know what trolling is.

Merely being unpleasant is not trolling. Serial killers, dentists, IRS auditors, and so on are not trolls. Trolls do what they do to produce a reaction, not to be unpleasant for its own sake. Moreover, showing a disagreeing opinion with another party is not troll, no matter how much that other party tries to claim you're trolling. Being stupid or laughed at because of your own nature also is not trolling.

Trolling is like throwing a spark on dry, quickly flammable material and watching it quickly ignite. It is not like using a blowtorch over damp wood for hours to force it to ignite. For instance, a proper troll would make a single post that would start a shitstorm. A failed troll would go around being unpleasant incessantly, mostly being ignored, and only on rare occassion getting an inflamed response due to pure numbers.

If you only want attention, preferably positive and aren't out to cause a reaction, then you're an attention whore and not a troll. If you want some kind of reaction, but really can't stand negative except for many 1 or 2 people who are the butt of the joke, and want everyone else laughing with you, then you're a comedian, which is getting closer but still not quite it.

Even when someone knows how to troll, they usually fail to be funny and then experience Troll's Remorse A.K.A being a butthurt, empathetic douchenozzle. Such feelings tend to pass once they realize that people who take the Internets seriously enough to get upset by trolling really ought to kill themselves. Once they reach this point, they are said to suffer from Internet Troll Personality Disorder. After long enough, they may even develop Chronic Troll Syndrome.

The most important thing that any troll should remember is not to believe in what you are saying, and be comfortable with telling made up lies whilst avoiding the truth or any factual details about your own life because not only are these boring, they could be used to identify you (unless, of course, you also lie about the details of your life.) To avoid the onset of Troll's Remorse, follow this technique and just lead them further down the avenue of trolling, swallowing your bait, hook line and sinker.

Only when one is a skilled troll can they pull off trolling IRL, such as Agent Pubeit, Penis Pump Sex Scandal, IRL Harry Potter spoilers, etc.

For all of those people who may not know what trolling is, remember, hating is NOT trolling. Neither is flaming.