10 Types of Internet Trolls Lurking Online

You know what they are. These vile creatures are all over cyberspace, in various social media, blogs, forums, gaming sites, and even in YouTube comments sections. Anyone who logs on to the Internet is likely to encounter at least one of their kind. They’ll lash out at anyone who they don’t see eye to eye with for one ridiculous reason or another, or be complete irritants. Sometimes they cross the line into cyberbullying.

Ever read the expression “Do not feed the trolls”? The best way to deal with them is to ignore them, but that’s easier said than done. There are a lot of different varieties of these trolls. What we have here is just a sampling of common types of internet troll you can expect to find lurking in some corner of the web and waiting to pounce on you.

1. The Grammar Nazi or Grammar Police Troll

It’s probably one of the most common species of trolls you’ll encounter on the net. These are the ones that have an OCD for grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors.

You can imagine one of them sweating behind its computer screen anxiously waiting for anyone to commit a typo just to point out their mistake. From time to time, they’ll even insult foreigners who can’t write in English very well even if it’s quite apparent that it’s not their official language. One of their pet peeves is the word “their” spelled “they’re” or vice versa.

2. The Spammer Troll

It’s another common type who’s not interested in what anyone has got to say, and whose only aim is to promote themselves or some dodgy product they’re trying to sell. Sometimes they’ll do a series of rapid attacks filling your Instagram search results with skin whitening cream products or some knock-off wristwatches. You’ll see them in comments trying to get you interested in the latest and greatest get rich quick schemes.

You’ll be left wondering how many people are dumb enough to take them on their offer. They’re pretty benign but can be very annoying for being inconsiderate.

3. The Incessant Know-it-All Troll

Be prepared to scroll down the page over paragraphs upon paragraphs of semi-intelligent comebacks from the dreaded know-it-all trolls. They won’t stop until they’ve had the last word.

Inside the minds of these self-proclaimed experts, they have never lost an argument. They will never give in even if it has become apparent to everyone that they’re wrong.

Google is their best friend, and they’ll Google anything they can find to prove how “right” they are. They may be a political analyst one day, and then become construction engineer today, and a boxing expert tomorrow. They know everything there is to know about anything.

4. The Broken Record Troll

You often see them on Twitter or YouTube. You’ll notice one of their comments, which is genuinely good and has garnered many likes. You may even have pressed the thumbs up button to show your appreciation. Then after a while, you’ll see the same comment again from the same troll also getting more likes. Someone else may have also noticed this and point this out. And then you’ll see it again in another post. You begin to wonder what its motivation is for doing it over and over again.

5. The Onion-Skinned Troll

This troll likes to blow every non-issue out of proportion and will argue like another know-it-all about it. It also wants to make a mountain out of a molehill, and sometimes plays the victim and try to get the sympathy of others.

They are very sensitive could be triggered by a joke, sarcastic remark, parody, or any harmless opinion, that they will take in a bad way and then proceed to moan and whine about it like there’s no tomorrow.

6. The Thread High Jacker Troll

You’ll find this type in discussion forums often skewing the thread conversation towards another direction. At times they would introduce another unrelated topic. It’s worse is if they’re with they’re tribe members (probably multiple accounts), and they start a parallel discussion. In the end, this troll and its buddies end up high jacking the thread and ruining it entirely with their shallow off-topic posts.

7. The Hater Troll

Rue the day that you draw the ire of the hater troll. This despicable troll loves to rile up people whose opinions it doesn’t agree with. It will respond with ignorance and hate, to the point of being personal with the unfortunate individual who became a focus of its contempt. Its typical comebacks would include racism, homophobia, religious intolerance, sexism, and even elitism.

Beware of its wrath because it’s very vindictive and won’t forgive and forget and will, on occasion, verbally attack you again. Hearing all the bitterness coming out of its foul mouth will make you wonder if it ever had a mother who loved it.

8. The Internet Warrior Troll

This brave troll doesn’t have an ounce of fear in its body, knowing its safe behind a computer screen. Its best weapon is a keyboard, and it loves to respond with physical threats against persons it has disagreements with.

It sounds courageous when it calls people out and challenges them to a real-life duel. It will even go as far as to set up a meet-and-greet so it could settle differences in the warrior way. Yet it knows that the other person is probably living halfway around the world and there’s a slim to no chance of that happening. It calls people cowards if they don’t take its warrior mentality seriously. Most of the time, it just brags about its male exploits and loves to emphasize what a stud it is.

9. The Wet Blanket Troll

These trolls would latch onto a meaningful discussion and will always end up ruining it with their gloomy outlook. They’re the epitome of a Debbie Downer who always makes another person feel terrible about what they just said. They seldom fail to find anything negative that could shoot down other people’s opinions. The conversation usually starts great but would end up being awkward and with others regretting what they have said.

One person could be discussing an overseas family vacation that she’s excited about only to be told by the troll that it remembered a plane crash that happened in the same country only a few years ago.

10. The “Why is this News?” Troll

This troll thinks it’s superior to you by implying that what you’re saying is not worth discussing. You could be giving an opinion about anything, and this troll will belittle it. It’s saying it can’t find anything interesting in what you’ve got to say even if you think it’s relevant.