Brock Turner Family Support Page: A Case Study in Master-Level Trolling

[Capital]

Hey fam,

I take it most of you are already familiar with the Brock Turner debacle. If not, here's a quick summary:

• POS college student rapes unconscious girl behind dumpster.
  
• Gets charged with rape.
  
• Brock's father writes letter to judge begging him to spare young Brock from prison, because: "His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life."
  
• Avoids multi-year prison sentence because the judge determined he was too soft and privileged for prison.
  
• Public outrage ensues.

Anyway, the Turner family name is in the media again. It appears someone (not associated with the family) has set up a Brock Turner Family Support Page on facebook and it's going viral as we speak.

Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/Brock-Turner-Family-Support-1119374058103620/?fref=nf

Not only is the page hilarious, but people are actually taking it VERY seriously. The administrator is evidently a 10th degree blackbelt in taekwontroll.

I noticed one of their posts linked to an (apparently) associated troll page called the Men's Rights Association of America. Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/Mens-Rights-Association-of-America-1538895856412488/?fref=nf

To the uncritical eye, this page appears to be a simple and boorish anti-feminist/Men's Rights advocacy page. Most of the commentators on the page apparently believe it's legit. I don't. I mean, look at this shit:

Caption: "By finesse, funds or force, the world is yours for the taking. Your dating life is no different. Never settle for second best in a sea full of limitless choices."

There's no such thing as the Men's Rights Association of America, and the page apparently popped up around the same time the Turner Family support page went active (June 9th).

So yeah, this appears to an organized exercise in master-level trolling. I love it.

Trolling for Fun and Profit:

Thus far, these two pages aren't making an effort at monetizing the insane amount of attention/traffic they're getting. But the potential is definitely there. Here's the formula:

1. Create support pages for deplorable individuals or organizations who are still hot in the media.
2. Defend them using twisted logic and inflammatory rhetoric.
3. Mix in a fair amount of less controversial advocacy to obscure the satirical nature of the page.
4. Wait for them to go viral (and they will -- in the wake of the Orlando incident, can you imagine the media IGNORING a support page for homophobic Muslims?).
5. Link out to other troll pages you own to gain likes, generate discussion, and incite outrage.
6. Create a blog and promote it on your troll pages once it's hit the "Viral" threshold. Monetize via CPM ads, adsense, whatever.

If timed correctly, I can imagine your Outrage Porn blogs picking up a fair amount of media attention also. I suppose the trick is just being subtle enough to not get outed as satire/trolling immediately.

Obviously, there are some ethical concerns with doing this. You're basically contributing to hysteria (and possibly hatred), but I can see this sort of opportunism being fun, benign, and profitable if done correctly.

So what do you guys think?
Have any of you capitalized on public outrage using this general formula?

Discuss.

 

[Sutra]

In some cases I'm cool with it, and even think it's funny.

In others, I fucking hate it and believe it to be detrimental to our society. For instance, some political sites that are troll jobs encouraging ignorance.

 

[Capital]

In some cases I'm cool with it, and even think it's funny.

In others, I fucking hate it and believe it to be detrimental to our society. For instance, some political sites that are troll jobs encouraging ignorance.

I agree to an extent. I'm an idealist at heart and hate seeing harmful messages being signal boosted by shitty bloggers. I have a very clear and plausible conception of what a healthy society looks like and it kills me a little every time I see someone promote a message that conflicts with my idealism.

This is where the cynical realist side slaps the shit out of me.

"Dude, regardless of what you think or do, people will still jump on trends and latch onto empty feels. Cash out on it all. It's their fault for being so uncritical and emotionally invested in the first place. If not you, someone else."

I'm sure one could poke holes in my "realist" logic, but it seems prima facie justifiable from where I'm standing.

 

[Sutra]

I hear ya, and I also feel similar to a certain extent.

Personally, the thought of "If not you, someone else" is something I've always been against. While I do understand the logic behind that statement, I feel it's an easy way for people to throw personal responsibility out the window and justify any action they take, no matter how harmful. I'm not saying you do that, it's just something I've seen others do and it's not something I agree with.

 

[Krass]

I agree to an extent. I'm an idealist at heart and hate seeing harmful messages being signal boosted by shitty bloggers. I have a very clear and plausible conception of what a healthy society looks like and it kills me a little every time I see someone promote a message that conflicts with my idealism.

This is where the cynical realist side slaps the shit out of me.

"Dude, regardless of what you think or do, people will still jump on trends and latch onto empty feels. Cash out on it all. It's their fault for being so uncritical and emotionally invested in the first place. If not you, someone else."

I'm sure one could poke holes in my "realist" logic, but it seems prima facie justifiable from where I'm standing.

I think for people who are just learning this thing it's the low hanging fruit to get some practice. Politics, religion, feminism, etc. I'm playing out a religious angle for one of my sites myself, even though I'm an atheist. It's easier to create polarising content for polarising topics.

I hope to be able to carry the skills over to more positive topics in the future, but Imma milk it for everything it's worth for now.

 

[Kevin]

Even if it works, it's not how I prefer to make money. I want to make money, yeah. But I want to make it in a way that I respect as well.