Throwing Schade

“Trolls are also distinguished from their predecessors by seeming not to recognise any limits. Ridicule is an anti-social force: it tends to make people clam up and stop talking. So there is a point at which, if conversation and community are to continue, the joke has to stop, and the victim be let in on the laughter. Trolls, though, form a community precisely around the extension of their transgressive sadism beyond the limits of their offline personas.” Richard Seymour in The New York Review of Books: Schadenfreude with Bite. (Social media has turned Schadenfreude into a bloodsport.)

+ “Imzy, started by two former Reddit employees, wants to be a kinder, gentler version of the controversial discussion site.” The excellent Joel Stein on the quest to create a decent place to talk online: It’s Like Reddit, Without the Trolls. (That’s also the definition of a completely blank page.)