A real-world troll story

[NewsMan]

Read my comments on my post yesterday.
The Nokia trolls are here. They are almost as annoying as Apple trolls back in the 1990s.
It’s always interesting behavior when you piss off someone’s “product religion.”
One thing that happened in the line on Thursday and Friday is that we all met two real-world trolls. There were two kids, who were about 14 years old. They were unbelieveably rude and there really was nothing anyone could do about them.
They’d come right in your face and taunt you. They were trying to get attention. I’d never met a person who trolled face-to-face before. I assumed that these people required anonymity to do their work. They don’t.
When Apple’s security guards kept them from coming into the store the entire crowd cheered. We had all been bothered by these kids. Where were their parents? They were allowed to stay on the street until 11 p.m. at night.
But, anyway, I am getting old. Remember, I don’t get it. But I learned some things in line. I found that the ONLY way to deal with real-world trolls is to band together. When we created a line that they couldn’t break through they got frustrated and went to another part of the line where their poison could still get them the attention they desired.
The problem is that online you can’t band together against trolling behavior. So, our other option is to ignore the trolls and not give them what they wanted. It was interesting watching these kids interact with people. Many people didn’t know they were trolls when they first came up, so would give them the attention they desired. But quickly the kids went over the line with each person and you could see the frustration levels rise. We had never met kids so rude.
Anyway, that’s my real-world troll story. Seems there’s a bunch of people who are unhappy with me for saying the iPhone is better than the Nokia N95. But it is. Sorry. And if that gets me called a “moron” like one troll just called me, so be it.
Have a good day! Ignore the trolls.

Original post by Robert Scoble


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