Anonymous wrote:Just curious, and maybe I’m naive, but why... WHY do you think people come on here just to “troll” around? Seriously, don’t you think there’s a shred of truth, or maybe a person is just lying to themselves, but either way, that their intention is not to deceive others but to figure out their own life? And, even if someone is a troll, what’s the harm? I mean, this behavior offers a great sociological perspective... even if the original post is fake isn’t there just so much to learn about human behavior from other people’s replies? And perhaps someone who actually does have a problem that mirrors the troll’s problem might benefit from some advice? So I ask, what is the harm? Really?
I struggle with those questions all the time. Sometimes the trolls are divisive and stir up a lot of negativity. The harm in that is obvious. But, threads like this have less obvious problems. The main one is that people get invested in them and then feel like their trust was abused. That may make them reluctant to respond to threads in the future which might be legitimate. Often posters are moved to make very personal responses that they probably wouldn't in other circumstances. They may well feel violated by the learning that they revealed something very personnel in response to a fake post. But, I agree that the threads can be interesting and possibly have positive aspects as well.