Two Towers Troll

[robinturner]

I've been doing a lot of surfing around satirical sites recently, thank mainly to links posted in LJ or mailed by friends. The best part is watching the reactions of people who don't get that it's satire and feed the troll. Childish, I know, but fun.

However, as far as I can tell, there's still no consensus as to whether the petition to change the name of The Two Towers to something less offensive. An article in Spiked Culture thinks it's just possible that the site was genuine, and the petition it generated certainly made itself real, even if it was started as a troll. This means that over 3000 people actually believed that the title was deliberately intended to refer to the World Trade Centre attack.

Sometimes I yearn for the old days of the Internet, when getting online was difficult enough to require a minimum standard of literacy. In those days, you could be pretty sure that anyone you encountered online would at least know their Tolkien. Hell, they could probably reel off the names of all the dwarves in The Hobbit! Trolling was an art in those days.

On the subject of trolling, here are a few of my favourite spoof sites:

www.bonsaikitten.com
blackpeopleloveus.com (thanks, pserv!)
Why Micorsoft Rules My Univrese

Comments

[earthemp6.livejournal.com]

blackpeopleloveus.com is one of my favorite parody sites. I know what you mean about people who take it all seriously. Most of the indignant letters on that page are hilarious.

On the other hand, I have a big problem with bonsaikitten.com. I actually have a huge consumer-protection related rant about it on my website (I'll provide the link if your interested). Anyway, the site may no longer be around as it is is currently investigated by the F.B.I (http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41733,00.html)

The Microsoft site was very amusing. Thanks for posting the link :)

[solri.livejournal.com]

Consumer protection? How can consumers be protected from a site that doesn't sell anything?

As for the FBI, Jesus wept!

I appreciate the point some objectors made that some people may be so stupid that they don't realise the site is a joke and actually try to bonsai their pets, but I don't think we can base content guidelines according to what stupid people might read into what we say.

Re:

[earthemp6.livejournal.com]

In reference to consumer protection:
(from my site)

Bonsaikitten.com-This person spent vast amounts of time creating this website, falsified his guestbook and created a hoax that alarmed the public to such a degree that an ineffectual online petition was started to stop his site. This person has committed a fundamental infringement on consumer rights (and as no laws have been formally placed to the effect when it comes to the Internet) criticism of such people becomes all the more important. They display a sales page that asks people to e-mail them with orders. This is misrepresentation and false advertising, as obviously, the product is never delivered. Also, they provide false testimonials implying that their 'product' was found to be satisfactory by a large demographic of people (including doctors and scientists). If this was not an Internet site, it could be brought to consumer court and possibly even be prosecuted by the State. If the site provided a disclaimer (this site is intended for humor, etc.), or did not have a page that asked for money from unsuspecting consumers ("Paypal, Mastercard, Discover Novus, coming soon") then it would be perfectly fine. The fact is, it doesn't. Consumer rights are important and should be protected at all costs, it ensures corporate liability and is the hallmark of true social democracy. But good news! They are now being investigated by the FBI.

[solri.livejournal.com]

But surely it is impossible to actually send money to the site owners. The worst they are doing is wasting people's time, which arguably the mojority of content on the web does (and I don't buy the time is money thing).

Let's say I set up a spoof porn site, with a link to a special members-only area, promising nude pictures of George W. Bush. The link goes through a number of other links and eventually ends up somewhere like www.bushorchimp.com (http://www.bushorchimp.com). Have I violated the consumer rights of people who genuinely wanted to pay good money to see Dubya in his birthday suit?

Consumer rights are important, but so is freedom of expression.

[evan.livejournal.com]

My friend used to run a pretty popular troll site (adequacy.org). He'd go post anonymously on popular sites where people were most likely to overreact to draw people in. The comments they got were hilarious.

[solri.livejournal.com]

I remember adequacy.org. Shame it isn't there any more.