I had a brief conversation with someone today over IM that went like this:
Phrost: is it trolling if you mostly agree with what you’re posting, but just dial it up 10 notches?
Person: i’d call it quasi-trolling
Phrost: we need to invent a word for it
Phrost: Ogreing?
I’ve take a bit of time today, in between other things I’m working on, to engage in a few “conversations” of this nature over Facebook. I pretty much meant everything I said, but expressed it in a manner that undoubtedly came off as if I’d downed a pot of coffee and had a swarm of bees up my ass. Or in other words, like I just got back from the gym, which was the case.
But for the most part, the tone of the posts was a little test in an ongoing experiment I’m conducting over Facebook, to pressure test my own network. The worst that can happen is that I lose a friend or two, which in itself isn’t so bad because if anyone I know doesn’t have the character to stand up to “lively” discourse, they’re better off not reading my status updates anyway.
You see, as I posted previously, the “Social Drift” of Facebook both concerns and intrigues me. One possible method of combating this, I believe, is such pressure testing, or rather, “ideological sparring”. Going full contact with your views is definitely not the best way to keep “friends”, but as far as I’m concerned it is the best way of separating the wheat from the chaff on your friends list.
Just be careful you don’t say something you genuinely don’t mean; that’d be trolling.