[Tuthmosis]

One of the side-discussions in the "Am I Sociopath" thread made it clear that we're in desperate need of a catalog of the various forms of trolls that loiter in the hallowed halls of the RVF. I couldn't resist and punched some of it out straight-away.

Needless to say, this isn't a comprehensive list and there's considerable overlap in the types. Often, a troll will display the characteristics of two or more types.

I figure this little intro will get us started. Please add, correct, or troll my descriptions.

1. Bad-Grammar Troll
Writes meandering, unintelligible posts--often in the form of worthless pondering and musings--that add zero value to the forum. Even a teenage girl with three iPhones wouldn't understand the arcane abbreviations and transpositions in their masterpieces. Even after repeated warnings--and proclamations he will make an effort to improve--he continues to write with near-illiterate impunity. Posts are either super-short one-liners or tortuously long--nothing in between.

2. Race Troll
Does everything in his power to drag the conversation into the realm of ethnicity and race. Write endless tomes trying to determine (from the comfort of his computer desk) whether a guy of his race can get a girl from another race (white girl), or rambling on about how unfortunate he is to have been born into his brown skin in some specific region of the world. No matter what others tell him, he finds some excuse for why his situation is different and therefore worse. He stubbornly refuses to actually try working any game until someone can somehow guarantee he can score the type of girl he seeks. In most cases, his goal is to keep you talking about race, not to solve an actual problem. But there also seem to be genuine specimens that are such permanently damaged goods, crippled with racial insecurity to such an extent, that even placing a white-girl on their erection wouldn't cure them.

   

3. Big-Baller Troll
Even if you have a topless Scarlett Johansson currently grinding against your cock, while lavishing you with syrupy praise--making it near-impossible to type your RooshVForum post--Big-Baller Troll still has more game than you. It's interesting that a guy who lays down so much pipe invariably makes retarded remarks about game or asks very elementary questions. Still, he will often excoriate and brow-beat others--with impressive Internet Courage--with bold assertions about his championship-level game, with little proof or indicator that it actually exists.

   

4. Game-Denier, Apocalypse Troll
Is the equivalent of the Catholic Church during the Renaissance, denying exciting, irrefutable science while the world around them embraces it and implements it successfully. Questions the efficacy of basic techniques that guys like me use on a daily basis just on the way to pick up the paper from the front lawn (I don't read the paper or have a front lawn, but you know what I mean). Pessimistically proclaims the death knell of entire branches of game (college game, night game) that are so massive that it is near-impossible for them to die.

5. Feminist (Jezebel)/Female-Apologist Troll
Links to articles, without a tinge of irony, about how women deserve more respect or how "pickup artists" are the scum of the Earth. Finds the one exception to the rule for some game commandment and submits it as proof that our lifestyle is oh-so-wrong. Obliquely suggests--through "scientific articles" or their own assertions--that older guys shouldn't pursue younger women, that monogamy is the only way to go, or other feminist talking points we reject collectively as a matter of routine.

6. STD Troll
Has an unreasonable fear of contracting an STD, even when he's not getting laid. Presents an array of suspect "scientific evidence," for why some conventional, accepted notion about STDs is incorrect. Wants to have a drawn out discussion on how be a player, raw-dog girls, but run absolutely no risk.

   

7. Immortal, Shape-Shifter Troll
Like a bad case of the genital herpes, this troll never really dies, flaring up when you least expect him. Despite being banned repeatedly for his annoying behavior, this troll emerges--from short or extended dormant stages--with a new handle, new avatar, and sometimes even a new writing style, over and over again. Since his only goal is to trap a few unsuspecting guys into his desperately-seeking-advice threads, he keeps coming back because he invariably fools a guy or two every time. An insidious--and often subtle--specimen, sometimes the only way to detect him is to analyze his IP address.



8. Roid-Rage Asshole Troll
A guy who, from all outward appearances, has competent game and makes occasionally valuable contributions to the community. The problem is the dude takes about as much as gives, unpredictably snapping at other members of the community in episodes of massive rage, making bombastic Big-Baller statements, and lambasting women in sizzling screeds. Even on his best behavior, the guy often comes across as a snide, arrogant turd who thinks he's entitled to immediate, thorough answers to his elementary questions or easy lays in the countries he visits. Much of his bitterness is borne from poor travel planning, sanctimonious views of propriety he shoves down your throat, or serial-killer like hatred for women--well beyond the profound disappointment, cynical bemusement, and overall disillusionment most of us harbor.

9. Self-Promoting Entrepreneur Troll
After an extended hiatus, suddenly materializes out of thin air to "share" some sort of "article" or website that you can bet your bottom dollar he's somehow affiliated with or, worse, to pump up his sagging blog-traffic numbers--often bumping ancient threads in the process. Has been a member since jump street, but still has only 37 posts and zero rep. Transparently and lazily copies and pastes hyped-up, early 2000s-style, tacky "PUA" advice from another website or source, with the sole aim of redirecting traffic to his shit--as evidenced by his elaborate signature with 13 embedded links.



10. Player-Hater Troll
Even though he only has a couple of dozen posts to his name--most of them lame, noob comments and questions--Player-Hater Troll still sees fit to zero in on the most senior, respected members of the forum, and abruptly call them out on their "phoniness" or "stupidity." To make matters worse, he himself has demonstrated zero knowledge of game, women, or even life.



11. Junk-Thread Starter Troll / Played-Out Thread Troll (Subtle Troll)
Repeatedly starts new threads--invariably of the lowest order--about well-worn and obnoxious, or simply irrelevant and so-the-fuck-what, topics. The forum's two (very) effective search functions are meaningless to this guy, because the urgency of assuring us, for the 2,000th time, that money or looks trump game simply renders them irrelevant. This is a difficult troll to smoke out, since he often cloaks himself behind the plausible excuse of being a newb--and because just starting a thread on an old, or simply uninteresting, topic doesn't necessarily rise to the level of trolling. But, some combination of: poor grammar, a strain of game-denial, a ridiculously low post-count, or excessively personal revelations without a request for advice (especially when no one knows or cares about them yet), is often a tell-tale symptom.



12. One-itis Troll*
There's a fine line between seeking advice on a certain type of situation you encountered as a result of a particular girl, and simply seeking advice for one particular girl. The former is just part of the process of learning game--a process we all have gone, and continue to go, through--the former is often a One-itis Troll. Not only does this troll start several threads about the same exact girl, he nick-picks and nay-says all of the responses he gets with "but" and "what-if" statements and other provisos, all with the sole aim of extending the discussion about his fantasy girl--who may or may not even exist. Once some of the guys he's managed to lure into his obsessive vortex call him out on his trolling, he'll often concede that he's "just being paranoid" or hides behind newbie status, but proceeds as usual. Like other insecurity-based trolling (e.g., race trolls), one-itis trolls are quite plausibly well-intentioned newbies, but given their drain on forum resources and the equally plausible likelihood that they're simply trolling, they need to be dispensed with surgically.

*Sometimes subtle. Not to be confused with simple, permissible newbie-ism.

13. Fiction-Writer Troll**
A seemingly competent, normal member of the community whose contributions are just a little too far-fetched. We've all done things and been in situations that stretch the boundaries of plausibility, but Fiction Troll's narratives go just a little further--displaying odd incongruities or elaborate literary devices that, upon close examination, smell obviously fabricated. What's more, they've often compiled little or no credibility on the board (through rep or a long history of posts) for their stories to be actually believable. The dead-giveaways tend to be bragadocious threads that trumpet his "alpha" cred or ultra-polished Dear-Journal threads that read like Skinimax-like voice-overs. The combination of a group of men whose lifestlyes are predicated on continual, impressive conquests--and the ease of stretching the truth behind the anonymity curtain of the Internet--makes small amounts of fish-story trolling almost inevitable. But egregious cases of outright lying, that take away from the mission of the forum, need to be called out.

**Allege with caution.