Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 7

Volume XXII Issue VII Version I 34 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals A Social Media and Meme Trolling: The Impact of Trolling through Memes in Kashmir Webcomics are frequently used as sources for these memes. Other memes, such as Keyboard Cat, are entirely viral phenomena. Several contradictory studies on media psychology and communication have attempted to characterize and analyze these notions and representations to make them accessible for academic inquiry. As a result, Internet memes can be thought of as information that spreads via the Internet (Castaño, 2013). This unit can multiply and mutate. Instead of being generational (Dawkins, 1989), this mutation follows a viral pattern, giving Internet memes a limited lifespan (Zetter, 2008). The behavior, nature of change, and teleology of Internet memes are some of the other theoretical issues (Castaño, 2013). Dominic Basulto (2013), in an article in the Washington Post titled "Have Internet memes lost their meaning?" writes that, as a result of the Internet's growth and the marketing and advertising industries' practices, memes have come to transmit fewer snippets of human culture that could survive for centuries, as Dawkins had envisioned, and instead transmit banality at the expense of big ideas. c) Trolling The word "troll" gets its etymological root from hunting and fishing lingo. The noun "troll" comes from an Old Norse word for a monster beast, while the verb "troll" has been derived from the Old French hunting term "troller," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster, the English verb 'to troll" refers to the process of gently dragging a lure when fishing for bait. "To annoy (others) online by purposely publishing inflammatory, irrelevant, or rude remarks or other disruptive content" (Merriam-Webster, 2018). Trolls, the perpetrators of these crimes, can be divided into numerous categories. Insult trolls, persistent debate trolls, show-off trolls, vulgarity trolls, grammar trolls, and others exist (Moreau, 2018). To understand what trolling was like in the 1990s and what trolling is like now, the terms "classical trolling" and "anonymous trolling" can be used interchangeably (Bishop, 2013). It started with "RIP trolling," when online users bombarded obituaries and tributes to the deceased with hateful comments (Greenfield, 2011). The term "troll" first appeared on Internet in the late 1980s. However, the oldest recorded occurrence of the word "troll" on record dates December 14, 1992, in a message on the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.Urban. Through its use on the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban (AFU) in the early 1990s, the phrase grew in popularity, and by the late 1990s. Urban newsgroups had become so popular that trolling had frowned upon. Similar behaviours were observed since the days of Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) in the late 1980s through "griefing," intentionally causing distress to other players in an online game. Moreover, flaming instills hostility or unpleasant exchanges in online forums, which also emerged through Usenet newsgroup discussions. Surprisingly, in America, although just 45 percent of U.S. adults have heard of the word "troll," 28 percent acknowledged hostile online behavior directed at someone they did not know, according to an Omnibus poll (Gammon, 2014). Of those who have ever uploaded anything, 23% admit to having intentionally disputed with a stranger over an opinion, and 23% admit to maliciously arguing over facts. Males were twice as likely as those aged 55 plus to engage in trolling activities and millennials aged 55plus to get into a nasty disagreement. Trolls tend to be particularly fond of Twitter (Case, King, and Case, 2019). According to a survey of 134,000 unpleasant social media posts, Twitter accounted for 88 percent, making it one of the worst platforms for online bullying and trolling (Fearn, 2017). Twitter, on the other hand, has been making changes. In 2017, Twitter improved the procedure for reporting abusive tweets, halted the establishment of new abusive accounts, created safer search results, collapsed abusive or low-quality tweets, and minimized notifications that people had been blocked or muted from conversations begun by individuals (Ho, 2017). d) Trolls by memes A troll, as defined by Collins English Dictionary , is someone who posts inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic communication in an online community (like as on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). It can be a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) "to provoke readers into displaying emotional responses or manipulating others' perceptions," (Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, 2009). Trolling is usually done for the troll's entertainment or to achieve a specific goal, like disrupting a competitor's online activities or influencing a political process. On the other hand, Internet trolling can purposely create confusion or harm other users, online for no apparent reason (Buckels et al., (2014). The noun and verb variants of the word "troll" are linked with internet discourse. In recent years, the media has associated trolling with internet abuse. According to The Courier-Mail and The Today Show, the word "troll" is used as "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the intent of bringing anguish to families" (Toder, 2010). In addition, famous fictional works such as Home Box Office and HBO's television show “The Newsroom" contains trolling depictions. A significant character confronts annoying people online and tries to enter their circles by posting unpleasant sexual comments (Hanna, 2012). Trolling is a catch-all term for online communities' norm-defying patterns of conduct. Trolls are forum users who "act repeatedly and intentionally to cause disruption or trigger disagreement among