Envoyé par Whitney Phillips
Of all the factors contributing to the trolls’ engagement with Mitchell Henderson’s death, emotional dissociation—an orientation to self and other that psychologist John Suler cites as a core pillar of online disinhibition3—is the most prominent. In the trolling world, dissociation manifests as an emotional firewall between he who targets and that which is targeted, and isn’t just incidental to the existence of lulz, but in fact is regarded as necessary. No matter the circumstance, and whatever their source, emotions are seen as a trap, something to exploit in others and ignore or switch off in yourself. Abandon all feeling, ye who enter here.
From this solipsistic position, one reinforced by the protections afforded by anonymity, trolls are able to dismiss the emotional context of a given story, as well as the harm their actions cause. All trolls see—all they choose to see—are the absurd, exploitable details. In Henderson’s case, trolls were either disinterested in or outright blind to the series of events that lead to the young teen’s suicide. They were either disinterested in or outright blind to the grief his death caused his parents. Most significantly, they were either disinterested in or outright blind to the ways in which their mockery exacerbated an already traumatizing experience. All that mattered was the punch line. The vast majority of trolling humor, and all humor categorized as “lulzy,” is characterized by similar myopia.