For the years that I was on Reddit and now on Lemmy, I have seen these terms used a lot, but honestly, I’ve never actually knew what it meant. (I’m sorry if this is a really stupid question.)

    • wreel@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      A little Internet history: the etymology of “troll” in the Internet sense comes from the fishing term “trolling” which is where one moves around the fishing area with bait waiting for fish to hit (or bite). In the old bulletin board days a normal response before engaging with an obviously inflammatory/bad faith post was to start “ok, I’ll bite … [Counter Argument]”