In the Bedford, satirists “debunk and deflate their targets, whether persons, groups, ideas, or institutions” (Murfin 457). There is a similar term used today that is much more controversial and vague, trolls. Can a satirist be a troll and can a troll be a satirist?
I once made a statement that Percival Everett is a troll and I received some adverse reactions. I understand that there may be a negative connotation associated with internet trolls, but those connotations are stereotyped to more radical trolls who hurt others for little to no reason. According to urban dictionary, trolls are people who make “random unsolicited and/or controversial comments on various internet forums with the intent to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument”. This description of a troll is vague, and it is accurate in its vagueness, but I believe it should be even more vague. It should include that their behavior can be actions that may be in real life and they may or may not provoke fights or arguments.
For example, one of the most common, harmless, and well known trolls is the Rick Roll troll. This troll is an action of randomly inserting Rick Astley’s music video “Never Gonna Give You Up” into whatever form of media that is being displayed and can be done without the internet. The purpose of this troll is to get an annoyed reaction from the viewer because their time was wasted.
I believe Everett is a troll because he implemented a controversial comment in “I am not Sidney Poitier” in a very serious situation. Not Sidney told his mentor, Ted, that he was molested by his history teacher. Ted knew the severity of the situation, but to lighten the situation, he cracked a joke about telling Not Sidney to report his teacher for “giving defective blow jobs” (Everett 33). Lael Truth did not find it to be funny but mean, meanwhile I argued that it was hilarious. Everett made a controversial comment against a higher authority to provoke an emotional knee jerk reaction. For me, it was humor and for Lael, it was something else and, we argued about it. Although this controversial comment is very minor in the grand scheme of things, it does not deny that this portion of the novel can be considered a troll by Everett.
Although some may view Everett’s work as satire, but trolling can be considered as satire as well. An example of one of the most radical trolls is best exemplified by a South Park character named Gerald Broflovski in season 20. Gerald Broflovski is such a terrible troll that he trolled a woman to her death. Despite this, Gerald was able to justify his actions by explaining that, “It’s not mean if it’s hilarious”. He compares his work to satire and says he is simply challenging the hypocrisy of society and implementing humor alongside it, and therefore he is not trolling and what he is saying is not exactly hateful. Although this is an excuse that he made up to get out of trouble, Gerald has a point. In an essence, Gerald was attacking a higher power, the social system, by revealing its social hypocrisies, but he was doing so at the expense of an innocent person. One thing for certain is that there are boundaries that should not be crossed, but a stereotypical troll, like Gerald, does. Being a troll means to bring out an emotional knee jerk reaction from others through controversial comments or actions, but the degree of controversy of the comment determines how much of a troll the person is.
Gerald is a more extreme variation of a troll, but nonetheless, Everett can be considered a troll as well. Everett may have seen his work as satire, but due to the vague definition of trolling, satire can be considered as trolling and vice versa. Gerald was a more extreme troll and hurt a lot of people, but because of his sense of humor, he thought it was satire. Everett’s work is seen as satire by the general public, but I see it as a very moderate form of trolling. The extremeness of trolling has given it the negative connotation it has today, but by definition, trolls and satirists are very similar. There is a moral line satirists generally do not cross, but trolls do. In the end, the line is everything and if you are a satirist or a troll, that line should never be crossed.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/fqeh0q/im-not-really-a-troll
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling
“Coming Home from Irony: An Interview with Percival Everett, Author of So Much Blue” (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
http://southpark.cc.com/clips/cr22o2/its-not-mean-if-its-hilarious
Murfin Ross, Ray Supryia M. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Third Edition. Palgrave Macmillan. 2009.