Troll¶
Internet, 1992
Useful slur when being deliberately aggravated with information discrediting your extremist ideology. The only reason an intellectual™ would ever face opposition.
Otherwise known as winding people up and/or asking deliberately stupid and inflammatory questions, trolling has been around since computing and the internet began — and even since 1972 in the US Air Force. Although nerds say it was prevalent during the late-80s, the earliest documented uses are on Usenet (alt.folklore.urban). In 1997, Steven Johnson described the behaviour in “Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate”.