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The advent of online communities has enabled new forms of virulent sexism that beg greater analysis. While aggressive online behaviortrolling - is present across internet cultures, it is worth naming specifically misogynist variants as "gendertrolling." Gendertrolling, I argue, has several components that make it distinctive from other more generic forms of online trolling. The following essay is an attempt to identify the distinct features of gendertrolling and bring attention to recent examples from a range of internet communities.
The term "trolling," according to internet studies scholar Whitney Phillips, arose in the 1990s and is defined by her as "disrupt[ing] a conversation or entire community by posting incendiary statements or stupid questions onto a discussion board ... for [the troll's] own amusement, or because he or she was a genuinely quarrelsome, abrasive personality." Trolls engage in their behavior to amass "lulz" (derived phonetically from LOL, meaning laugh out loud), which Phillips describes as "an aggressive form of laughter derived from eliciting strong emotional reactions from the chosen target(s). In order to amass the greatest number of lulz possible, trolls engage in the most outrageous and offensive behaviors possible." Phillips also notes that "the majority of trolls on the English-speaking web are ... white, male and somewhat privileged."1
Gendertrolling is a relatively new kind of virulent, more threatening online phenomenon than the generic trolling described by Phillips. Crucially, it is not done only for the lulz - to simply upset the targets of the trolling-but it also often expresses sincere beliefs held by the trolls. While traditional trolls can certainly represent depraved values and behavior (the worst examples of w'hich can be found on such sites as 4chan),2 and they certainly embody the worst of racist, ableist, and homophobic behavior,3 what makes gendertrolling distinct and, I argue, specifically and dramatically more destructive to its victims, are the following features:
The participation, often coordinated, of numerous people. Gendertrolling tends to involve a concerted or coordinated effort on the part of many trolls, often in the dozens or even hundreds, who overwhelm the victim with the sheer quantity of attacks, sometimes numbering hundreds per hour for a sustained period.4
Gender-based insults. Gendertrolling involves specifically gender-based insults, including the widespread use of pejorative terms that are leveled particularly at women-"cunt,"...