Trolling, provoking people online for amusement, was the internet's defining pastime in 2010, from YouTube comment wars to 4chan raids to Trollface. "Don't feed the trolls", "u mad?" and "problem?" were its vocabulary, and forums had entire rulebooks for dealing with it.
- Type
- trend
- Origin
- Usenet, 1990s
- Peak
- 2008-2012
Related
- CultureSupported
Trollface
Problem?
Trollface, a grinning MS Paint face drawn by Carlos Ramirez in September 2008, became the universal symbol of internet trolling by 2010. It appeared at the end of rage comics, in YouTube comments and...
- WebsiteSupported
4chan
Anonymous, /b/, and the meme factory
4chan's anonymous image boards, especially /b/, generated much of the internet's meme vocabulary in 2010 and gave rise to Anonymous, which attacked PayPal and Visa in December in support of...
- CultureEditorial
Forum culture
vBulletin, phpBB, signatures, post counts and the ban hammer
Before Reddit and Discord ate them, forums were where the internet talked in 2010: vBulletin and phpBB boards for every hobby, game and band, with avatars, signature images, post counts, moderators...
