Fine dining with the trolls

Up until this weekend, I don’t know who Gordon Ramsay was. Yes, I knew he was a chef and somewhere in the black and swampy regions of my brain, I think I remember him having a reality TV show. As a general rule, the only time I watch cooking shows is when I can catch an old episode of Iron Chef — the original show, and preferable one where the main ingredient that is still putting up a fight — or when Bobby Flaw is making Bloody Marys.

But thanks to a couple of restaurateurs — Samy and Amy Bouzaglo — in Arizona who apparently have no concept of the series of tubes that is the ‘ol Interweb, I am now a fan. Ramsay’s shows, called Kitchen Nightmares, focused on the couple, who own Amy’s Baking Company. Ramsay apparently walked out in the middle of taping the episode because, basically, the couple tick the box in just about every category of crazy needed to make a really good reality show — delusional, self-important combined with an inability to shut their yaps.

Now, if this had happened just 10 years ago, the episode would have been lost among the lunacy that qualifies as very good, bad TV. But Amy’s Baking Company has a Facebook page, a Twitter page, and whether they liked it or not, they also have a page on Yelp!, a San Francisco-based website that allows users to give ratings to companies. Following the broadcast of the show, these pages received a wave of negative posts. Everything would —probably — have been all right if the Bouzaglo’s had simply responded with a nice, not-really-an-apology type apology. Ya know, something like “Sorry. Our Bad. We’ll improve.” Or, if that wasn’t on the menu, they should have simply turned off the computer and walked away until things calmed down.

They didn’t. Instead they responded with nasty, profanity-laced comments and STARTING WRITING IN ALLCAPS. It was probably the ALLCAPs that trolls, because the public relations meltdown was then picked up by Reddit, a social media site who’s fans are known for being a wee-bit rowdy. They jumped on the anti-Amy’s Baking Company bandwagon and the online brawl escalated further. Eventually, the Bouzaglos realised — a little too late — that no amount of threatening and screaming would make the Internet shut up, so they then claimed the whole incident was the result of a hacked account. That got a laugh. The abuse kept on coming.

The Internet is now littered with stories about the incident, lectures about how to diffuse a potential nasty social media episode, and a number of articles about the increase in the Internet phenomenon of trolling.

Let’s be clear. This episode is a clear example of why manners, courtesy and ability to not take yourself so seriously are necessary skills for anyone attempting to be online, but this is not a case of trolling.

Not just making rude remarks

Trolling is, according to one of the definitions on Urbandictionary.com, “the art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the Internet using dialogue. Trolling does not mean just making rude remarks.” For the record, the most popular definition for trolling on the site is “being a prick on the Internet because you can.” However, I’m a firm believer in the first definition.

Trolling is something of an art. A really good troll will spend time setting up a target (or targets) in an effort to eventually cause the targets to go stark raving-crazy. The guy who will spend hours online playing a game only to, at the penultimate moment, do something incredibly stupid that results in a team’s loss or a wiped raid (for you WoW fans) is a troll. It’s infuriating, but it’s also capable of producing a good laugh (after you’ve calmed down.)

So what do you call the rest of it. That’s easy; they’re jerks. There is no wit, no intelligence and nothing other than a desire to whip others into a frenzy, which on the Internet, is about as difficult as falling down (in the real world, Mr Literalist. You can’t fall down online). Usually these jerks look reasonable in comparison to their targets — anyone watching Kitchen Nightmares would have a difficult time saying the Bouzaglo’s aren’t jerks — but that doesn’t excuse anyone. Going out of your way to kick a man when he’d down is jerky behaviour, just like the person who starts a fight on TelevisionwithoutPity.com by claiming that who is and isn’t a real fan (Supernatural fans where a lighting rod for this last week) is a jerk. Just like the person who flames message boards with racist diatribes is a jerk. Just because it’s online, doesn’t make it trolling.

Let’s face is it. Everyone is capable of being an irritating jerky brat, usually by the time they’ve reached the age of two. It takes no special skill, and just like in the real world, the best thing to do is just ignore it.