Virtual Parade Tormented by Trolls

On December 23, 2020, the last day of school before winter break, Carver streamed a virtual parade on youtube, featuring the Enginettes, Carver Drumline, and countless students from advisories, classes, and clubs.  However, this parade was was ruined by unidentified trolls. After the Parade, Principal Domers emailed the school community to address the comments in the chat, calling them "negative, racist, homophobic and mysogynistic."

Several students, like Ramirrah Reid, a Junior at E&S jumped into the chat, asking the trolls to stop their attacks. She spoke up with a simple phrase: "This is why we can’t have nice things at E&S.”

After a situation like that, it’s hard to think of a reason why ANYONE would do this. But similar situations like this happen all the time. After speaking with some anonymous trollers, we have a general, but blurry idea of why this happens. Our first troller, who we’ll call them Troll 1, spoke of their reasoning. They do it for the simple reason that, “It’s fun to make people mad.” 

They explained how when they can successfully get a rise out of you, they have succeeded. As if it’s a challenge. However, when asked about the guilt afterwards, if there's any, they said that they actually feel it. They are left with a guilty conscience after the deed. Now of course one would think, “So why do it??” But they explained that it depends on the situation. They are someone who only tolls if provoked, as in things like chats or gaming. They troll when they’re trying to retaliate to someone expressing negative feelings towards them FIRST. Their guilt only lies within situations that contain someone they care about, when they know they went too far. When phrased like that, their trolling seems more reasonable. On the other hand… Troll 2. 

Trolling is a problem that will most likely never go away. Especially since Covid has made just about everything virtual, it’s everywhere you go. What we’ve learned from our trollers still won’t stop it. There’s simply too much of the internet. There’s no point in actually trying to fight everyone on the internet. 

Even Ramirrah explains how she doesn’t usually stand up. She knows that since nothing can actually be done, there’s no point in her arguing with them and giving them what they want, anger. However, this was different. After everything that has happened in 2020, this to her was the school trying to give the students a sense of normality, a sense of realness to this digital world, as it would have been if we were actually in school. Since it’s digital, the making of the presentation made it even harder. She makes the point that since it’s the first digital parade they have ever done, you would think it would be something memorable to the school, something they’ll remember fondly. 

“Instead, people had to bash on it, for no reason at all”, she states. 

Everyone’s answer to why they troll is different. The victims however, see them all the same.