
Why Do Anonymous Twitter Trolls Use Anime Avatars? - smacktoward
https://theringer.com/anonymous-twitter-trolls-anime-avatars-harassment-4chan-8578d36b2920-8578d36b2920#.cn9pcmmbt
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Spivak
This was a fairly interesting read but I don't really like the opening line.

> In the eyes of her persecutors, the author Maris Kreizman was guilty of the
> following counts: being a woman, being Jewish, criticizing Donald Trump, and
> tweeting at all.

Internet trolls aren't persecutors -- they're kids that say mean things on
public forums.

They don't care in the slightest that she's a woman or Jewish -- those are
just easily identifiable characteristics that can be used for insults and
slurs.

Not that these trolls need any defense but 'and tweeting at all' is honestly
insulting to the trolls. Most of them probably don't even know or care who
this woman is outside of a screencap of her tweet appearing on some image
board. The entire culture is based around anonymity and shunning identity in
favor of ideas.

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wccrawford
The reason they don't pick on men for being men is because they're male
themselves. So they _do_ care that she's female because it's something they
aren't, and they can pick on her without picking on themselves.

This is true for all bullies and the people they bully, though, and not just
women.

There are certainly women who look down on men and bully them for being men as
well, but it doesn't seem to ever rise to this level of cruelty.

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tnone
No they'll pick on men for being virgins, for being gay, for being cucked on,
for being effeminate and weak, and so on. That's how you target masculinity,
because masculinity is something men have to earn via proxy traits, whereas
femininity is something to be lost.

It's equally vicious, but it's not seen as equally cruel. And the idea that
all trolls are male doesn't hold. Women are far more cruel to each other than
men are to them. Somehow the Mean Girls of the internet never get considered.

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r_smart
Wasn't there a large research project just done on twitter abuse that showed
1/2 of online harassers are women?

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red_blobs
My Cousin's son is borderline-autistic and antisocial. He loves Anime and I
see him and his friends regularly posting sexist, bullying, and other horrible
comments on Facebook (including many 4chan Memes).

Many people use this as proof that the tech industry and men are sexist. In
reality, it's mostly the work of teenagers with too much time on their hand
and mentally ill individuals.

I wish we could stop lumping in an entire industry and gender for the actions
of a few that may not even be in the industry at all.

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r_smart
Yeah, it's always felt weird to me that there's so much hand-wringing about
this stuff when it's clearly the work, in large part, of children being edge-
lords. Maybe it's just my perspective from playing WoW a lot back in the day
(an amazing number of children played that game), but I just can't bring
myself to take this stuff seriously. I think there's a tendency to make basic
assumption that the anonymous person you're talking to is roughly your age or
older and sane. I can't imagine anything further from the truth.

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Grue3
Interestingly the example of the most offensive tweet (and the only specific
tweet as far as I can tell) featured an avatar from a western cartoon. Could
some sort of cognitive bias be at work here?

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nitwit005
Isn't this missing the most obvious possibility, which is that anime images
are just generally popular with the population that contains trolls generally?
Say, 12-30 year old males?

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gipp
Anime images are not "generally popular" with 12-30 year old males.

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nitwit005
Odd then that the internet seems utterly jam packed with English language
anime content?

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notacoward
I don't think the author pursued the passivity angle far enough. Internet
trolls get off on the idea of their victims being helpless to retaliate. What
image could be more appealing to them than of cartoon characters whose
properties of childlike innocence, pliancy, and weakness are taken to an
extreme? If they could use hentai avatars they would, but that would be too
obvious so they settle for moe instead.

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jandrese
It's nice to have an article that puts the answer right up front.

