Hello, I’d like to start this off. I have hinted at that I’ve been working on some body of work for my tips and strategies to engaging trumpublican/deplorables/RWNJ’s/edgelords/etc. From now on, for simplicity’s sake, I am going to refer to them as “deplorables” because it is all encompassing. However, these come in many different flavors and you need to understand that. I’ll get to that later.
Some background: I am an effective troll. The only ability in my life I have ever been confident of, from a very young age, is a unique capacity to get under people’s skin. Anyone who has followed my posting for a long time knows this about me. On serious topics and boards as a general rule I do not troll, or do the soft type of El Diablo trolling where you lead a conversation into a funny place by taking a position you do not actually hold. Since 2016, one of the only outlets I have had is by joining conservative-leaning facebook groups and trolling until I get banned or I am physically threatened and think it’s prudent to bail before I get doxxed. I’d say my success rate is pretty fair to high.
It took me a long time to post this because, I had it all sort of thought out in my head but then I kept thinking of edge cases, special scenarios, circumstances where a certain condition may not apply and it became too complicated. So, I have just decided to break it into several parts and kind of a running commentary on the tactics I use to effectively troll the deplorable community.
NOTE: People probably expected this guide to be a “how to troll” like, I tell you what to say to conservatives to get them triggered. No. This is just concepts and principles for now because you need to understand them to effectively troll. SO - even though the following words may seem like “I could never be like that” or they seem too harsh, brutal, cynical, or overboard - give it a listen, I think they’ll just help you generally. And the cause, after all, is noble.
Rule 1) Pick your battlefield carefully
For me, I don’t just dive into a group like the_donald. That is suicide and you will quickly be overwhelmed. You don’t wander into enemy territory alone. I find community groups (your city will likely have a FB page of 10k+ members posting about a variety of topics local to your area, and I find these groups get REALLY heated), or boards that may have a fairly mixed political community in which politics frequently get injected into a debate. Really, they’re not hard to find if you spend a lot of time online or on facebook. You don’t really want super strict moderation, either. You’ll know the place when you see it. I recommend starting with your city’s facebook community page.
The main reason you want a mixed community is because inevitably some of the stuff you are saying will ignite with other people that agree. They’ll join in, and sometimes even take over the conversation for you(and sometimes better), allowing you a graceful exit, your troll duties performed. The second reason is it is really hard engaging with 20+ people ALL of which disagree with you and hate your guts, will overwhelm you faster than you can respond, and to the collective it just looks like you’re getting your ass beat. DO NOT GET YOUR ASS BEAT. That brings me to the next rule.
Rule 2) Pick your battles carefully
One of the main psychological driving factors, in my opinion, of deplorable trolling/shitposting/edgelording is because they want to feel powerful. They want to feel like they scored “points” on you or “triggered” you. To be completely honest, that’s what motivates me, that’s how I know. So when you dive into a cesspit like chiefsplanet or theDonald with a hot button liberal take like “plastic straws are actually really bad guys, ok” or god forbid egghead terms like “The Overton window” you are just fucking asking for it. Furthermore, you’re reinforcing their beliefs through the collective bashing. You are making them feel GOOD and not BAD. That is opposite the prime directive. DO NOT DO THIS. Do not just sit there and take it. Bail, whatever it takes. For me I just turn off notifications for that thread and it’s like it doesn’t exist anymore.
The ideal targets are dumbshit people you can isolate. Forgive the poker analogy again, but it’s just like isolating the fish in a ring game. It gives you the best chance of success. Look for fish, not sharks. Replies under facebook comments are PERFECT for this because it allows you to attack the individual in a way that is not immediately visible to people browsing the thread. Use this to your advantage! In that comment section, for a moment, you are 1 on 1. This is what you want, and inevitably tilt that further in your favor. The immediate comments are the most important ones because they drive the rest of the conversation. Comment on posts that happened within the last 10 minutes to get a fast response and quickly utilize your troll tactic to get them flustered and looking ridiculous to anyone who joins the fray later.
Rule 3) Engage the person, not the argument
This isn’t fucking debate club. I wish democrats collectively would get this through their fucking skulls. Think of it like poker. Sometimes you are just playing against a person not necessarily on the strength of the cards you have in your hand or the cards in his. Now, even writing this I can think of one exception where you do want to treat it like debate club - I’ll outline that in a separate section if I can remember.
What this is is a war. You want to humiliate them and make them feel bad before they make you feel bad, or have the appearance/satisfaction of thinking they made you feel bad/angry/upset/whatever. This is what they are trying to do to you. Make no mistake, they are not trying to debate you, even if they pose as that frequently. I think all of our experiences over /politics over the years has taught us this bad faith tactic they love to use. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Your goal is to make them feel absolutely stupid and humiliated through any means necessary.
What do I mean? Like shit, in some instances with old or dumb people that cannot write is to just constantly attack their grammar in a terse way. Responding to 400 word blobs of nonsense with “you’re*” and other really obvious embarassing spelling mistakes is simply enough sometimes and gets an immediate rage response (And a LOT of “bonus likes” which believe me, enrage them further). As you gain experience, these lines that go off from these moves become astonishingly familiar. I can probably predict to within 3 words exactly what the response is to that by a Boomer and know the next 2-3 likely posts based on that response.
One of the main points I’d like to make clear in this section is knowing the type of deplorable you’re dealing with. For starters, I’d pick the softest targets - the boomers. You dont really wanna hassle with the edge lords or the professional trolls (I legit have ran into some very good russian ones, another story for another time) because it’s just so much work for so little gain. And you stand a higher chance of losing because they’re playing a similar game as you.*** So be able to quickly categorize and understand what type of idiot you’re dealing with.
EXCEPTION Unless you’re dealing with an obviously incompetent or easily triggered edgelord or troll. Those are the most fun to fuck with because they’re not used to having their shit thrown back in their face.
Rule 4) Attack Methods
This may be an attack point specific to me and a subset of people, because I consider myself a decent writer and well educated, but belittling their spelling and writing and knowledge is just a solid tactic all around. A lot of their posts descend into gibberish as they frantically try to spit out their nonsense talking points while you tear them to pieces in a quickfire fashion. Just throw in like, “Well that was complete nonsense and I’m not sure if I was reading actual sentences at some points, but I’ll take a stab at what I think you meant and…(elaborate your point).” Honestly this is just like a deathblow to old people. They cant stand it when a young person is acting like they are smarter than them, and if you are even halfway literate it’s easy to make them look extremely foolish.
Example: One of my favorite subjects is this old lady that constantly posts super racist deplorable takes based on clickbait headlines from dubious sources that completely and totally obviously contradict her post, like it’s not even remotely close. So I just sometimes pop in and say
“Again, Julie, I am concerned about your literacy. The article actually says this: . Did you read it?” Note, the screenshot - if you just block quote text they’ll say you copied it from somewhere else, lol. Wasted a lot of time with that, but even if they start challenging you, which they FREQUENTLY will, you can be like “lol click the link it’s literally right there in the second paragraph. Man, julie, I didn’t know reading was this much of a challenge for you. I’m sorry, I feel I have been overly cruel.” ALL CAPS LOCK MELTDOWN ENSUES
Condescension goes a long way, btw. What angers them about libz is they think we think we’re better than them. Of course we do. We’re better educated, wealthier on average (in terms of average salary and lifestyle), and dont think kids should ever be locked in cages with inadequate hygiene provided to them. Shove that in their fucking faces how much better you are than them. They hate it.
Ok, I think I hit the MAIN points of some of what I wanted to cover and gave myself a 1500 word limit which I’m a few hundred over, so I’ll stop for now here because I don’t want to get too long winded. My next post will be about how to counter their common tactics.
Keep in mind MORE THAN ONE OF YOU asked for this, ok? Feel free to contribute anything you like to this thread, let’s collect our knowledge. I think @suzzer99 s one of the resident people who has the most knowledge on this because he’s been battling in the trenches for years. Share your tactics, this isn’t the only way and in my mind, is an honorable thing to do.
it’s a tricky subject for them.