Some trolls do it just for lulz

Some trolls do it just for lulz

Recapping some of the most popular memes of 2016, the challenge is to tell whether they are true or false, and if true how true they are: Barack Obama founded Islamic State; A book like Animal Farm can teach the little ones to love and care for animals; Pahlaj Nihalani gave The Jungle Book U/A rating because of Mowgli’s chaddi; you knew Brexit was a bad idea when James Bond has to sell pan masala.

Demonetization infused prodigious new energies into memes towards the year’s end: Sonam Gupta bewafa hai; If you sing the national anthem three times in front of a mirror, Modiji appears and gives you a 100 rupee note.

Richard Spencer, who coined the term alt-right, says memes make people feel rather than think: “that is their raw power.” Alt-right trolls dressed up memes as political activism in America and India also embraced this trend enthusiastically.

A new book claims BJP’s digital army uses both volunteers and paid employees to put out communal rumors, hate tweets and slander. Naturally the truth of this claim is being hotly contested in our post-truth world.

Actually, India is not at all new in this post-truth business. Even the Science Congress here has seen claims such as planes having been invented in Bharat 7,000 years ago. The proper little meme war that broke out on this particular claim suggests so-called libtards have also boned up on this craft post-haste. A memorable bouncer from their side was: Ancient India sure had planes; in fact some of them are still flying, called Air India.

Gandhari had 100 sons in Mahabharata and in online echo chambers this becomes evidence that India invented stem cell research. Lord Ganesha has an elephant’s head on the body of a human being so the ancients practiced plastic surgery. This intermarriage of faith and facts gives really short shrift to imagination, which can be a more fantastic glue than any surgery.

The word optimism took wings in the Enlightenment, where reason was discovered as the common ground to negotiate differences of opinion. But in the post-truth Age of Trolls reason is being banished. In echo chambers that cherry-pick data and confirm pre-existing biases, the oxygen is not optimism but vitriol. Researchers have scored trolls running such gigs high on pychopathy and sadism. They can be motivated by ideology. Or they may seek to spread misery, fear and hatred just for lulz, laughs.

Because they are so nihilistic it can seem like a losing battle to engage them. Like Nietzsche said, when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

And yet 2016 has also given us innumerable examples of the defeat of trolls by ordinary mortals. Just look at little Taimur Ali Pataudi. Like a superhero Bollywood’s newest Khan fought down the charge of having an anti-national name. He’s keeping it and we’re giving peace a chance.