Is Trolling a Cry for Attachment?

"What do we make of trolling from a psychological point of view? Is it a new unrestrained form of sadism unleashed by the internet? Is it a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, externalized via memes? Or is it a cry for attachment? A perverse form of inviting community and fellowship? This latter claim is advanced by Alfie Bown in his book Post-Comedy. In it, Bown traces some of the history of comedy in the West with an aim of trying to make sense of recent forms of dark or dank comedy that have come to dominate the media space as of late."

"In a provocative claim, Bown describes trolling (the ongoing harassment of others with an aim to offend, trigger, and provoke) in terms of Freud 's castration wish. By trolling so explicitly, he argues, "trolls" have a suppressed wish to be "castrated" symbolically-to be told no-as a means of entering the community at large."

"For Freud, early adolescent development was characterized, particularly for boys, by an emergent castration anxiety-the fear of losing one's penis. Now, Freud meant this more symbolically, in terms of the fear of losing one's independence, and perhaps one's core physiological traits, via the threat of others. "Castration," in other words, means the symbolic act of being told no, being put in one's place, in having to follow rules and restrain one's own impulses and desires."

Trolling often appears antithetical to community yet can operate as a form of community-seeking through deliberate provocation. Some analyses link trolling to a symbolic castration wish whereby explicit offense or transgression functions as an invitation to be constrained or told no, thereby gaining social recognition. Freud's castration complex frames adolescent fear of losing the penis as symbolic anxiety about losing independence and being subjected to external limits. Experiencing a 'no' can feel like a dramatic violation of freedom and can provoke resistance; contemporary dark or dank comedy and online provocation can express these relational dynamics.

Read at Psychology Today