On Trolls and Avatars

This brave new world, or—some might say—crazy new world of cyberspace is constantly coming up with new concepts and words for us. An “avatar”—as I understand and have done for a while—is a virtual person that is you but not you that you create on the other side of the cyber-veil. In fact there are games and places you can permanently go and live, work, and recreate, as your avatar. For example you can marry another avatar. You can even buy virtual real estate and build mansions. In fact, I understand that some of these virtual worlds actually involve real currency exchanges for purchases.

However, I have learnt a new cyber word just recently. I have learnt about the “troll”. In Norse mythology trolls were ugly creatures that lurked in dark places and fought against goodness and light. They ate children, lived in small groups and craved darkness and isolation. If daylight fell upon them then they turned into stone.

A troll in today’s terminology refers also to an evil creature, yet human and unfortunately very real—a cretan who lurks in the “dark” places of cyberspace attacking people on Facebook or Twitter. The troll hides in the darkness of the presumed anonymity of the internet, sniping at others with ugly and destructive invective, inviting victims into “flaming”—exploding verbally in response to their attacks—which of course just add fuel to the conflagration.

This all makes me wonder whether a troll lurks within us all. Most of us have the internal resources and the moral self-control to keep the troll locked in its cave. Of course a school environment (or the work place) is ripe for the activity of trolls. I have heard of school communities where not just students have been attacked by peer-trolls who rip into them tearing them to pieces on the net but in some instances teachers come under attack.

I would however venture to suggest there are moments when we are all tempted to ‘attack’ someone ‘anonymously’ because we feel so strongly that we have been wronged by them, or they have annoyed us so much. A similar emotion is experienced when we encounter road rage, a fairly common experience in this city with its massive traffic jams and out of date road networks. But back to my question, “do we all have a troll lurking deep within us?”

I often wonder what Jesus would make of the digital age, especially the depersonalisation that is a by-product of social networking—we have never been more “connected” with others but also many are so lonely. We know so many people, our children have so many links but the worry is that they are superficial.

I would also want to humbly suggest that Jesus would warn us about the inner life, as he did the Pharisees. He would say that it is not so much what goes into us (whether it be food or internet images and communication) that is the issue—but rather what comes out of us that is the salient point of things. “What comes out of the person is what makes them unclean. For from within, out of peoples’ hearts, come evil thoughts…” (Mark 7:20-23) Now don’t get me wrong I’m not wishing to preach a moralistic sermon here—rather I want to suggest that we all need to be on the guard against allowing ourselves, and our children, to be caught up in discharging our annoyance, and anger and hatred through emails, throwing stones from a distance on Facebook and other cyberspace connections.

We need help with this and dare I finish this little piece by quoting another New Testament source, Paul: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (and heart). Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)

Next fortnight I will be offering (with the help of others more learned in this subject area) some pointers on how to assist our kids to navigate this challenging new world of trolls and avatars.

Mr David N Williams
Chaplain