By Troll 2.0. Found via reddit, this site connects you to a person in Omegle, feeds their chats to Cleverbot, which responds back to the person on Omegle. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.iywib.com/cleverbot_omegle.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.iywib.com/cleverbot_omegle.php</a> People just keep talking to it. They have no idea they're talking to a computer, and they just never figure it out. It's completely amazing. Stranger: Is this Melissa? CleverBot: How old was she when she invented you? Is she an american? Stranger: I fuck cows CleverBot: Yes cows! Stranger: i fuck dog and goats and deer wanna chat? CleverBot: And. That last one is my favorite, it's like, Cleverbot is not impressed by what you fuck. FOCUS: Just fucking watch what happens when people speak to Cleverbot but don't realize they're speaking to Cleverbot. I could, and likely will, do this for a long looong time.
There is a guy at work who gets bored from time to time and decides to take it out on me by just endlessly rambling at me over IM, and he gets butthurt if I don't respond. On several occasions I've just opened up an Eliza (similar to Cleverbot) window and done the same thing, only manually. My experiments demonstrate it takes about 15 minutes for him to realize something isn't right. If you want to give some strange applet unrestricted access to fuck up your computer, go ahead - for all of our benefit(s). However, if you don't: ALT FOCUS: What's the best example of Internet trolling you've experienced (or, better yet, performed)? What makes it so artful?
Some of those conversations posted are incredible. Stranger: 19 f school girl who's been naughty. loves being gagged and tied. needs to be taught a lesson. dominate me? CleverBot: Yes. Stranger: what shall I call you? master? CleverBot: I'm Hermione Granger. Stranger: asl? CleverBot: Are you a Jesus Lion? FOCUS: I thought this, if it can count as "trolling", as one of the better ones. I love the internet. Taken straight from wikipedia:
I love this. I need a Cleverbot email program to respond to 99% of my customers emails. Some of the best trolling that comes to mind takes place in automotive forums. Back in the early 2000's there was a meeting of some pretty amazing automotive engineers and designers that joined forums specific to the vehicles they worked on. Combine those individuals with troll-happy teens with a little bit of web savvy and there were some amazing threads where these automotive professionals wasted hours upon hours arguing with fake-fact websites and misinformation that people created out of thin air. It was especially fun to realize what was happening by page two and see the thread leap to 100 pages by the next day with some 60 year old ex-GM engineer arguing why you can't run a turbo charged motor on a mix of water and sawdust as trolls bombard his responses with fake-fact bullshit and knowing that the poor old bastard can't help but follow the links and continue the argument. Good trolling is an art form. Nowadays there are too many shitty artists though.
I agree with Guy Fawkes that some of the best trolling occurred a while ago, before it became a mainstream activity. Some of my favorites from middle/high school. Toobis - amazing Canadian troll throughout 2004 and 2005. I think my favorite rant of his likened maxi pads to diapers and women to babies. The Saga of Bloodninja - always good for a laugh. I like Mall Ninja a lot, too. I only found out about him a few weeks ago when someone posted it here. Two more recent, mainstream ones. Oh Internet, formerly Encyclopedia Dramatica - This site is similar to 4chan in that it eventually devolves into infinitely obscure injokes and inscrutable meme references. Some of the articles about other memes and internet celebrities are hilarious, though. As I'm looking at the new site, it appears much of what made the encyclopedia funny is gone. Shame. I would have nominated it as one of the biggest, most cohesive acts of trolling. An entire wiki with thousands of trolling articles. The WoW Funeral Raid - Everyone knows about this but you have to mention it in the context of the best trolling ever. The history of Eve Online is full of epic trolls as well.
This is not quite trolling, but close enough that I'll go ahead and post it. The first ever flash mob was done as a prank ...on the participants. The person who organized it wanted to demonstrate how easily manipulated hipsters were and how they would flock to anything with the right labels of counter culture and edginess. [The guy who organized it was a guest lecturer in my CyberLaw class.]
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.27bslash6.com/easter.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.27bslash6.com/easter.html</a> This guy is brilliant.
The exchange that made him (internet) famous is the best: <a class="postlink" href="http://27bslash6.com/overdue.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://27bslash6.com/overdue.html</a>