Do Feed the Trolls
I’m trying to build a habit of writing about things that trigger me. For one, I’m sensitive, so there’s an infinite supply of things to write about. Moreover, writing helps clarify what you’re really triggered by. People who have a regular journaling habit say that it’s revelatory and therapeutic.
This is about the recent Kamra-Aggarwal debate
spat. It’s not about who’s in the
wrong - we all know the answer to that. It’s about how people have been reacting
to the episode.
Imagine this: an influential, powerful person fails to read the writing on the wall (to the point that angry customers burn down a shop). A provocateur, who’s otherwise irrelevant, kicks up a storm. Both parties are amply defended and criticised. Finally come the fence-sitters - those who seek some nuanced middle ground in the whole affair, even after the dust has decisively settled. It’s a regular template. I’m going to mention, quote, paraphrase, criticise and defend many people. But the names are only incidental - I can always replace these names1 with others and tell the same story2.
There have been many interesting reactions to the Kamra-Aggarwal exchange - from the tone-deaf sycophancy of Smita Prakash to the crisp and well-researched critique of Sucheta Dalal (I apologise for mentioning them both in the same sentence). Dalal wrote only of facts and drew only the most modest rhetoric from them, as any good journalist should. She’s a giant-slayer, after all. She doesn’t need hyperbole.
But where’s the fun in that? How on earth are we to consume news without a side of embellishment and grandstanding? Restrained, understated journalism is not seminal, in that it makes the audience shut up. On the other hand, opinions laced with jingoistic chest-thumping and hypernationalism are far more fertile. They’re the perfect clickbait and have the highest shelf life of any kind of discourse.
As for me, however, the most interesting reaction was somewhere in between these two extremes. It came from Vatsal Sanghvi when he called Kunal Kamra someone “whose job is to troll people.” It was seminal in that it made me think carefully about what a troll really is3.
A troll, in one sense of the word, is someone who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online, or who performs similar behaviours in real life. Of this, Kamra is certainly guilty. He has offended and provoked both online and offline. Wikipedia further says that
The behaviour is typically for the troll’s amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival’s online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people.
This fits too. It’s reasonable to think that Kamra could be trolling for his own amusement. He’s a comedian, after all, and has quipped that funnier content is found in current affairs than anywhere else. Now, he’s not likely to have caused more harm than the CCPA, the share market, or the thousands of customers complaining about Aggarwal’s products. But he can certainly be accused of disrupting, confusing and harming Aggarwal.
So we can reasonably describe Kamra’s behaviour as that of a troll: offensive, provocative, harmful to others and amusing to the troll.
But is that really so bad?
Let’s dissect this description of trolling. Trolling is offensive. But so are many other things - especially humour. Kamra, being a comedian, has perhaps been a lot more offensive in his humour than in his trolling. Jaideep Varma has made an entire documentary on offense-taking. And on offensive humour, the Marathi writer P L Deshpande said,
Humour has been called a weapon. And rightly so. It’s a weapon because it can wound. But it’s not a knife wielded by a thug, it is instead a scalpel used by a surgeon. It hurts, only so that it may heal.
Many a times, unintentionally, the artist offends their audience. So, when we include offensiveness as a characteristic of trolls, we must ask - offensive to whom? Is the troll generally offensive? Or should offense-taking perhaps be more nuanced? Being offensive isn’t universally bad. Context matters.
By the same token, being provocative isn’t universally bad either. Don’t we, in regular public discourse, often celebrate people who pwn their opponents by provoking them? A lot of good art is provocative. I’d go so far as to say that the best art is provocative. Artists want to provoke you. Moreover, in the current instance, Kamra’s provocation was mild. Aggarwal was pre-provoked by the stock market, his dissatisfied customers and the CCPA.
In fact, the only negative connotations of trolling are toxicity and bullying. Trolls can continually cause harm because of the anonymity they enjoy. Here’s where Kamra starts looking less like a typical troll. He’s hardly anonymous. Varun Grover has joked that if the establishment were to purge dissenters, he won’t be worried because Kamra would be higher up on their hitlist. Kamra made a very public scene on a flight, and he’s a regular public interest petitioner. Anonymity is clearly not something he thrives on.
Finally, trolls are supposed to be bullies. I’m not saying that Kamra has never once punched below his weight. But that’s not what he’s known for; he’s known for sticking his neck out. On the other hand, bullies who consistently attack those who are weaker (economically, socially and otherwise) than themselves are found more often on TV debates and the ANI podcast.
Let’s not forget the other kind of troll - the dim-witted but dangerous mythical creature. The Witcher video games and books feature some very entertaining troll encounters. Geralt’s interactions with trolls (and other sentient “monsters”) are the most enjoyable part of the game. Even in the Witcher books, trolls are very complex creatures. This conversation from The Last Wish shows the role trolls play in the world of the Witcher:
‘…under that bridge sits a troll and demands every passerby pays him. Those who refuse have a leg injured, sometimes both. So I go to the alderman: “How much will you give me for that troll?” He’s amazed. “What are you talking about?” he asks, “Who will repair the bridge if the troll’s not there? He repairs it regularly with the sweat of his brow, solid work, first rate. It’s cheaper to pay his toll.’
The idea of a troll performing public service is bizarre. We’re not prepared for a reality where satire is a better delivery mechanism for news than whatever abomination passes for mainstream media. A comedian defending consumer rights is more bizarre to us than a newsperson’s naked and blatant destruction of journalistic standards. Trolls should have no business doing anything but trolling.
But sometimes trolls come up with “solid work, first rate.” It’s cheaper to pay their toll.