Quote of the week
Trump continued, “I asked Paula [White] to invite some of her friends here that she believes are in contact with God, so that you guys can pray for me that God gives me the wisdom to make the right decision as to whether I run [for President] or not.
Nothing to Lose: Unlikely Allies in the Struggle for a Better Black America
On trolls
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. That the community consists almost entirely of people with no identifying characteristics – ‘anons’ – is part of the point. It is as if the laughter of the individual troll were secondary; the primary goal is to sustain the pleasure of the anonymous collective.
