Schadenfreude (/ˈʃɑːdənfrɔɪdə/; German:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[ˈʃaːdn̩ˌfʁɔʏ̯də] (listen); lit. ‘harm-joy’) is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.
There was a study done recently on trolling behavior on the internet. I’m sure most of us remember it, but for those who don’t, here’s the link and a snippet;
“These findings provide a preliminary glimpse into the mechanism by which sadism fosters trolling behavior,” the article says. “Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun … and the Internet is their playground.”
The key phrase to take away from the article is “Not based on random sampling” which means that any claim to scientific rigor in the study just goes out the window. Consequently the label of sadist really can’t be applied to trolling behavior in general, much less just the trolling on the internet. Still, it always interesting to see trolls squirm.
There are trolls (as in people who place themselves in the way of furthering a conversation) everywhere in life. Recently they’ve been showing up in restaurants and retail establishments across Texas. They look something like this;
These are trolls, trolls in real life. They are attempting to stop a conversation concerning the place for weapons in everyday life in the US. They intentionally bring weapons into places where they are not needed or wanted, and they do it specifically to stop conversations like this one;
Now, I have talked to people like the Texas Open Carry members in the photo above (another one of those frequent conversations in the TexasLP. It’s in the platform, even) They insist that they are simply exercising their second amendment rights. I understand the argument, but I have a counter observation I’d like to offer “Do you take that in a short or regular straight jacket?” Because the idea that people will not feel threatened by their openly carrying weapons is completely fucking psycho. It reminds me of the NRA stationing armed guards at a Washington Press Club event they were attending, only to have the press call authorities to have the armed guards removed. The presence of a weapon in any situation is a unspoken threat of force, always there under the surface.
Jon Stewart reveals the nature of open carry and the goals of the NRA. The clip after that will give you tips on how not to troll with your guns.
To troll someone is to experience Schadenfreude,the reason I started this article with that definition. This entire article gives me enough Schadenfreude that I think I might need a cigarette now.
Editor’s note. Schadenfreude definition replaced with wikipedia definition and directed to wikipedia instead of to answers.com. Page gives a 404 as of 2019, and all of the answers.com links that I have placed historically in the blog now have to be redirected elsewhere. The archive of the clip for All-In on June 3rd is missing. I left the video link in just in case MSNBC finds their assets and puts that video into the archive.
