My internet expertise appears to range from 1988-2009. When I decided to take a sanity break a couple of years ago I started missing out on memes and phrases and behaviours. But it has been the longest September ever and I just couldn’t keep up with all the Pedo Bears and ORLYs and lipsticked pigs and congresspersons’ underwear bulges.
That’s why I had to verify with the two sources I trust most on such things (Aunt B. and Urban Dictionary) the exact meaning of “Concern Troll” earlier this year. For those of you as ignorant* as I was:
A person who lurks, then posts, on a site or blog, expressing concern for policies, comments, attitudes of others on the site. It is viewed as insincere, manipulative, condescending.
So I didn’t recognise it when this guy (with no backlink) popped up at another blog to start talking about how all Christians–except him–are Neonazis and he is the New Dietrich Boenhoeffer. You’d think, with my internet savvy circa 2009 that I would at least know enough to walk away when Godwin’s Law bears out. But I blame the stone drugs. (Wow. I blame the stone drugs for a lot of things. Lazy me.) Or the fact that my husband is at Bonnaroo and I can’t text him pictures of the dogs. Or the fact that any time someone says “Dietrich Boenhoeffer” I start to get the same flopsweat I get when someone says “C.S. Lewis”. Sure, those guys are great theologians with whom I have much in agreement. But they’re still JUST MEN.
Anyway, I engaged this fellow early this morning, still in my Greensky Bluegrass afterglow. And as I ate lunch it dawned on me. He’s a freaking Concern Troll. I have, for the first time in YEARS, bitten troll-bait. Clearly I am out of practise here. But at the same time I told him he can engage me here, so that we can spare Mike Duran. (I’m not linking to Mike’s site on this because I don’t want to further muddy his blog on this matter.)
So, Matthew, if you want to continue the conversation…
*Ignorant is not a bad word. Despite what some people say. Everyone is ignorant of something. Including, it would seem, the knowledge that “ignorant” is not a bad word.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
I had to warn a friend on youtube to stop, stop, stop attempting to explain something to some guy… the guy was obviously not gonna hear. It’s so easy to be taken in. -C
Never liked Boenhoeffer. There, I said it.
The thing about Boenhoeffer is that he and I just…I mean, he’s still an early 20th Century German. And has that Lutheranish bent to his theology that is very much about legislating faith. Germans love institutions. And Boenhoeffer DID a good bit to address the individual’s effect on an institution but at the heart of it he was STILL about wanting to have Christianity be a quasi-governmental force. So our agreement stops where his love of government takes hold.
I’m too much an anarchist to warm to that.
But he’s a martyr. And Christians tend to love martyrs.
You are blurting away and anyone who has any understanding of Bonhoeffer’s family and upbringing as well as theological “Werdegang” knows how wrong you are. But go ahead and keep blurting, its your webpage. You are the epitome of what Bonhoeffer experienced at Union Theological Seminary among his fellow students.
How shallow you are; and liking it.
This is the reason I have not engaged said commenter. And now I have a name for it.
Wow!
Matt, I appreciate people commenting on my blog and don’t require them to agree w/ me. When your comments 1.) Became long–winded, 2.) Went off-topic, and 3.) Turned strident, I soured. I was tempted to ask you to chill, but thought it best to remain un-engaged. I think Katherine engaged you fairly and has a point. I hope you take a minute to consider what she’s saying. Peace….
Packing heat?
Seriously!
Trolls come in all forms on the internet. Salesman trolls. Discrediting trolls. It’s easy to guess what those trolls are up to. So my question is this–what is the internal motivation of concern trolls? What are they after?
Pretty much the same thing most trolls are after. Attention and engagement.
But the angle of the Concern-Troll is that instead of being insulting (“Everyone knows Picard was better than Kirk! If you don’t then you’re a Ferengi Half-wit!”) or obnoxious (“Being sick sucks. I never had any luck with doctors. But I found something that works! Ask me about Pomegranite Horse Pee Cure All Juice! I now sell it because it is Teh AWESOME!!!”) they get points for appearing to be caring, thus worming their way into the group conversation and controlling it from a central ground. It’s mostly found in politics, which is why I wasn’t even thinking to look for it at Mike’s blog.
The basic Concern Troll goes something like this:
“Have you guys ever thought that when we make fun of Sarah Palin it is bad for the message of Feminism everywhere? It’s going to hurt this blog if it gets out that a major feminist blog is anti-woman?” Now according to my friend Aunt B., if someone who has been around the blog for awhile asks this question it is quasi-legitimate. But if someone pops up all of a sudden, providing no back-link to their own blog and information about themselves, and starts in it could very well be a Sockpuppet (a fake entity created by someone to make their claim look more widespread than it is) variety Concern Troll or just a regular old CT.
Most of the time, though, the Sockpuppet thing is just in the world of politics it seems. My limited experience of Concern Trolls outside of politics is that they are people who are new to the conversation who genuinely want an audience. Since they haven’t gotten an audience at their own site, they go to wherever an established audience exists and try to bogart the conversation.
It’s often a deliberate attempt to derail a discussion that is making the person uncomfortable.
I have no idea which category your new pal Matt falls into. But he is making me laugh on a hot day, so he’s got that going for him.
Is there still no a/c where you are?
There is a/c where I are. It is insufficient on a really hot day (say, above 93 or so), and my a/c at home is insufficient on a really hot day or a really hot night when cooking is happening. But mostly it’s enough. Are you thinking of our friend RW, maybe?
I had just come in from outside when I wrote that, so more aware of the heat than I might have been.
p.s. I missed the conversation, so that may be the problem. Sometimes, I just have to bow out and do other things.
Kathrine,
You could not be more wrong in your description of Bonhoeffer. What is the objective, purpose, of defaming a man who was exactly opposite to your caricature. You promote yourself all over the internet and want to be acknowledged as a leader of some kind and have all your facts upside down? Why?
Kathrine,
Looks like you are bit stuck in the early 20th century when you characterize Germans as loving institutions. Talking about ignorance loving itself.
Then why are Christian home educators in Germany still being jailed/persecuted/fined for not putting their children in the approved public schools?
Jill?
Can you give me a link to the situation you describe?
Jill,
It’s best to just let him say his piece and walk away. Not that you don’t make an excellent, well-reasoned point. It’s just been my experience over the past few days that he is not as into excellent, well-reasoned points as he is into making dramatic pronouncements about God and Hell and Germany.
I shouldn’t bite . . . http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/default.asp . Now I bow out. I’ve been making anagrams from the word procrastination.
I shouldn’t bite . . . http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Germany/default.asp . Now I bow out. I’ve been making anagrams from the word procrastination. Okay, not sure what’s wrong w/ the link, so just do an internet search: homeschool Germany. If you actually want to know the truth.
Hi Jill, I think its time for those who believe in homeschooling in Germany to fight for such a freedom. I would agree totally.
But does that example support the idea that “Germans” love institutions?
How is it that the word “prayer” may not be mentioned in public school in the US and Christian courses may not be included in the curriculum?
This is by the way completely the opposite in Germany. Christian courses are taught throughout the school system, Christmas songs are a normal part of every year singing. Is it possible that Germans, including the small Christian minority, are not all that eager to home school? There are also many Christian schools in Germany who take up the slack for more concerned believers.
OMG. Katherine was right about not falling for the bait.. Even if what you’re saying is true about German schools teaching Christian classes, which I doubt, you’re backing up Katherine’s assertion. Most people in Germany don’t want to home-school because they love their institutions, and they love institutionalized forms of religion. I wouldn’t care if the entire American public school system became Christianized overnight, prayed over the intercoms, and had daily Bible readings. I would still choose home-school because, as a libertarian American, I don’t prefer institutions–and, going strictly by numbers–there are millions of Americans who feel the same way as I do. In Germany, there are a few hundred. And they are facing prison sentences.
Ugh. Sorry Katherine. Sometimes I need an argument, but I’m seriously done now.
If you find a kettle of crazy, it’s best not to stir it…
Kathrine,
You know I never labeled anyone Neo-Nazi from among followers of Jesus Christ. Why are you doing this? And some of the others simply falling for defamations like this and mis-characterizations.
It was not until very recent that I engaged any blogging at all. I thought I had found an environment that was wiling to explore out side the box. Unfortunately I misinterpreted my welcome. For this I can only blame myself.
I have absolutely no need to continue with you guys and apologize for having apparently stepped on some well defined ego-toes who prefer their well blogged exchanges of niceties (and not so nice, lol) to remain within the “feel good Christian writers club”.
Again, very sorry for rocking the boat on a slick calm.
Good bye…:)
There’s never a good wet-works team around when you need one…
***
Although standing up to Hitler’s Germany was pretty epic, I’ve never been otherwise overly impressed with Rev. B.
I do confess to being somewhat of a C.S. Lewis fanboy though. Os Guinness is another favorite. His “The Call”, “Time for Truth” and “Fit Bodies- Fat Minds. Why Evangelicals don’t think.” were sanity -savers for me.
I do dig Lewis and Guinness and, even though they aren’t always orthodox, I like the angles Donald Miller and Brian McLaren bring to the conversation at times. And I confess that I, too, am a Lewis fangirl, in spite of my present allergy to the ongoing process of Lewis Deification.