Italian Priest Organizes Beauty Contest for Nuns
Italian Priest Says He is Organizing an Online Beauty Pageant for Nuns
ROME August 24, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.
The "Miss Sister 2008" contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.
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Monday, August 25, 2008
Oprah Winfrey and Jesus Christ
Oprah Winfrey is a hero of tens of millions of television viewers. "How can there be only one way to heaven or to God?" She asks her audience. She is of the opinion that there are now millions of ways to get to heaven.
When a lady in her audience asked, "What about Jesus?" Oprah defiantly answered her by repeating the question, "What about Jesus?" Oprah went on to explain how she had been a Baptist until she heard a charismatic Pastor make the statement that God was a jealous God. She told her viewers in her opinion God was simply love and God being described as a Jealous God made her really stop and think.
On her television show Oprah Winfrey has been pushing a new book by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth.
Read more
When a lady in her audience asked, "What about Jesus?" Oprah defiantly answered her by repeating the question, "What about Jesus?" Oprah went on to explain how she had been a Baptist until she heard a charismatic Pastor make the statement that God was a jealous God. She told her viewers in her opinion God was simply love and God being described as a Jealous God made her really stop and think.
On her television show Oprah Winfrey has been pushing a new book by Eckhart Tolle called A New Earth.
Read more
Friday, August 22, 2008
Teacher Arrested for Sex Acts With Student
Another Teacher Arrested for Sex Acts With Student
Police Say the Affair Started When the Student was 15 Years Old
By SARAH NETTER
Aug. 22, 2008
A 24-year-old Maryland woman has become the latest high school teacher to be arrested and charged with having sexual activity with an underage student.
Autumn Leathers was charged after police say she performed sex acts with a student.
Police say teacher Autumn Leathers had a sexual relationship with a teenage student.
Autumn Leathers, of Frostburg, Md., was charged Thursday with child abuse, fourth-degree sex offense, perverted practice and second-degree assault. She is alleged to have been having sexual relations regularly this summer with a 16-year-old boy from Mountain Ride High School in Frostburg. Leathers taught at the school, but it was unclear whether the boy was one of her students.
Read more
Police Say the Affair Started When the Student was 15 Years Old
By SARAH NETTER
Aug. 22, 2008
A 24-year-old Maryland woman has become the latest high school teacher to be arrested and charged with having sexual activity with an underage student.
Autumn Leathers was charged after police say she performed sex acts with a student.
Police say teacher Autumn Leathers had a sexual relationship with a teenage student.
Autumn Leathers, of Frostburg, Md., was charged Thursday with child abuse, fourth-degree sex offense, perverted practice and second-degree assault. She is alleged to have been having sexual relations regularly this summer with a 16-year-old boy from Mountain Ride High School in Frostburg. Leathers taught at the school, but it was unclear whether the boy was one of her students.
Read more
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
At 138 years, India's oldest man dies
Wed, Aug 20 03:27 AM
Read the full story
India's oldest man, Habib miyan, who entered the Limca Book of World Records in 2005, died early on Tuesday morning in his Jaipur house at the age of 138 years. The centurion fell ill with fever and dysentery on Sunday and succumbed in Jaipur's SMS Hospital. Incidentally, Habib decided not to celebrate his 138th birthday on May 20 this year following the serial blasts in Jaipur on May 13.
Born in Rajgarh in Rajasthan's Alwar district on May 20, 1870, Habib grew up to become a clarinet player with the Jaipur Royal Palace band. His close friend, Rajesh Nagpal, a bank employee, recalls, "I noticed him when he came to collect pension for years from the bank. He started with a pension of Rs 1.28 in 1938, which finally rose to Rs 2,698."
Read the full story
Monday, August 18, 2008
The Shroud of Turin Controversy
From the Los Angeles Times
A Colorado couple researching the shroud dispute radiocarbon dating of the alleged burial cloth of Jesus, and Oxford has agreed to help them reexamine the findings.
By DeeDee Correll | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 17, 2008
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.
In 1988, science seemed to put that question to rest.
Findings Radiocarbon dating by three separate laboratories showed that the shroud originated in the Middle Ages, leaving the "shroud crowd" reeling. Shroud skeptics responded, "We told you so." The Catholic Church admitted that it could not be authentic. Many scientists backed away.
But John Jackson, one of the shroud's most prominent researchers, was among those who insisted that the results made no sense. Too much else about the shroud, they said, including characteristics of the cloth and details in the image, suggested that it was much older.
Twenty years later, Jackson, 62, is getting his chance to challenge the radiocarbon dating. Oxford University, which participated in the original radiocarbon testing, has agreed to work with him in reconsidering the age of the shroud.
If the challenge is successful, Jackson hopes to be allowed to reexamine the shroud, which is owned by the Vatican and stored in a protective chamber in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.
Jackson, a physicist who teaches at the University of Colorado, hypothesizes that contamination of the cloth by elevated levels of carbon monoxide skewed the 1988 carbon-14 dating by 1,300 years.
On that point, Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, seems to agree.
"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed," says a statement on his website. "Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information."
Steven Schafersman, a geologist who maintains a website skeptical about the shroud, dismisses the effort as one that's bound to fail.
At a conference sponsored by the Shroud Science Group at Ohio State University this weekend, the Los Alamos National Laboratory presented findings that the 1988 test results were flawed because the samples tested came from a portion of cloth that may have been added to the shroud during medieval repairs.
The shroud's historical record dates back to 1349, when a French knight wrote to the pope of his possession of a cloth he described as the burial shroud of Christ. In 1978, a team of scientists led by Jackson conducted a series of tests on the shroud, including X-rays and chemical analyses. They concluded that the shroud was not painted, dyed or stained and that the blood stains were real. But those findings did little to quell the controversy surrounding the shroud.
Many believe that Jesus imprinted his image on his burial cloth during his resurrection, and others think that the shroud is the authentic burial cloth but that the image was formed by natural processes. Skeptics maintain that the shroud is a forgery created by a medieval artist seeking to display it to relic-hungry pilgrims. The debate often is bitter; each side accuses the other of twisting facts and ignoring evidence that doesn't fit its view.
A former professor at the Air Force Academy and scientist at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Jackson holds a doctorate in physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Born and raised in Denver, he also is a devout Catholic who has been transfixed by the shroud since he first saw its image at age 13.
Read it full
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-na-turin17-2008aug17,0,7350329,full.story
A Colorado couple researching the shroud dispute radiocarbon dating of the alleged burial cloth of Jesus, and Oxford has agreed to help them reexamine the findings.
By DeeDee Correll | Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 17, 2008
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.
In 1988, science seemed to put that question to rest.
Findings Radiocarbon dating by three separate laboratories showed that the shroud originated in the Middle Ages, leaving the "shroud crowd" reeling. Shroud skeptics responded, "We told you so." The Catholic Church admitted that it could not be authentic. Many scientists backed away.
But John Jackson, one of the shroud's most prominent researchers, was among those who insisted that the results made no sense. Too much else about the shroud, they said, including characteristics of the cloth and details in the image, suggested that it was much older.
Twenty years later, Jackson, 62, is getting his chance to challenge the radiocarbon dating. Oxford University, which participated in the original radiocarbon testing, has agreed to work with him in reconsidering the age of the shroud.
If the challenge is successful, Jackson hopes to be allowed to reexamine the shroud, which is owned by the Vatican and stored in a protective chamber in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy.
Jackson, a physicist who teaches at the University of Colorado, hypothesizes that contamination of the cloth by elevated levels of carbon monoxide skewed the 1988 carbon-14 dating by 1,300 years.
On that point, Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, seems to agree.
"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed," says a statement on his website. "Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information."
Steven Schafersman, a geologist who maintains a website skeptical about the shroud, dismisses the effort as one that's bound to fail.
At a conference sponsored by the Shroud Science Group at Ohio State University this weekend, the Los Alamos National Laboratory presented findings that the 1988 test results were flawed because the samples tested came from a portion of cloth that may have been added to the shroud during medieval repairs.
The shroud's historical record dates back to 1349, when a French knight wrote to the pope of his possession of a cloth he described as the burial shroud of Christ. In 1978, a team of scientists led by Jackson conducted a series of tests on the shroud, including X-rays and chemical analyses. They concluded that the shroud was not painted, dyed or stained and that the blood stains were real. But those findings did little to quell the controversy surrounding the shroud.
Many believe that Jesus imprinted his image on his burial cloth during his resurrection, and others think that the shroud is the authentic burial cloth but that the image was formed by natural processes. Skeptics maintain that the shroud is a forgery created by a medieval artist seeking to display it to relic-hungry pilgrims. The debate often is bitter; each side accuses the other of twisting facts and ignoring evidence that doesn't fit its view.
A former professor at the Air Force Academy and scientist at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Jackson holds a doctorate in physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Born and raised in Denver, he also is a devout Catholic who has been transfixed by the shroud since he first saw its image at age 13.
Read it full
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-na-turin17-2008aug17,0,7350329,full.story
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The story of Asaram Bapu and controversy of child deaths in his ashram
http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20080811/814/tnl-cult-controversy-the-story-of-asaram.html
Search:
Cult & Controversy: the story of Asaram ashram
Mon, Aug 11 03:48 AM
For the phenomenally influential religious guru, Asaram Bapu, his 37-year-long spiritual career had never been a cakewalk and the four mysterious deaths in his ashramss here and in Madhya Pradesh and the public ire he has been courting are only the latest that he hopes to shrug off.
His spiritual domain is spread across 300 ashrams throughout India, as also in the US, with lakhs of his followers and admirers flooding his commune with funds. Sixty-seven-year-old Bapu has even delivered a speech at the parliament of world religions.
Few controversies connected with his ashrams have invited media attention the way the deaths of four children in his two ashrams - in Ahmedabad and Chhindwara - did in just one month. His ashram, in both the cases, is facing serious problems, with investigators finally getting down to grilling inmates of the ashrams in connection with the deaths.
Asaram Bapu may not have had to look back ever since he set up his first kutia or hutment in Motera village here in 1971, but the path had all along been strewn with scandals.
Sindh-born Asaram, who had migrated to Ahmedabad with his parents during Partition, is facing about dozen-odd cases at different places - all of them pertaining to alleged land grabbing by his Sant Asaram Bapu Trust. One of the villagers in Motera, Ashok Thakore, has moved the court to get back five acres of his family's land allegedly grabbed by the ashram. According to Thakore, the land is situated adjoining the ashram and was used for erecting tents on the Guru Purnima day. Permission to this effect was given by his father to the ashram. After his father's death, the ashram grabbed it by saying that Thakore's father had 'gifted' it to the ashram. However, the ashram has not been able to substantiate its claim with proofs.
In another case, Anil Vyas, a farmer from Jehangirpura village near Surat, where the ashram is facing several allegations of land grabbing, is fighting a prolonged battle for recovery of his 34,400 square metres of prime land from the ashram. According to Vyas, despite the fact that the ashram's claim over the land was challenged in the court, the state Government regularised the unauthorised encroachment on January 24, 1997. However, the Gujarat High Court on December 8, 2006, held the regularisation illegal and decreed in favour of the farmer. The Ashram then appealed to the Division Bench against the order.
A Delhi-based widow, Sudarshan Kumari, is also fighting a legal battle against Asaram Bapu whose Trust, she alleges, had fraudulently got some papers signed by her. The paper later turned out to be a 'gift deed' to the ashram. The documents say that she has gifted the ground floor of her house in Rajouri Garden, New Delhi, to the ashram. According to her complaint, on July 6, 2000, on the pretext of taking her to Asaram satsang, she was taken to the office of Sub Registrar in Janakpuri, New Delhi. One of the inmates of the ashram, identified as Mani Kaka, hypnotised her and made her sign a number of documents, without allowing her to go through the content. The other person who signed the papers there, according to her, was Narayan Swamy, son of Asaram Bapu. She came to know about the gift deed when officials from the Municipal Committee of Delhi came to confirm it.
The ashram authorities at Rajokri village, near Gurgaon, have allegedly forged documents pertaining to the registration of the ashram. Bhagwani Devi, a resident of Rajokri, has also approached the Delhi High Court levelling allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Rajokri ashram.
Even Government agencies have levelled allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Trust. A few months ago, the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (BSBRT) had served a notice to the Trust's headquarters in Ahmedabad, asking it to vacate a land belonging to BSBRT, worth Rs 80 crore. And in April 2007, a retired judge of the Patna High Court had filed a criminal complaint in Kadamkuan police station, Patna, alleging grabbing of his land by Asaram Bapu and others.
In Ratlam, Asaram's Trust had to vacate a piece of land after a prolonged litigation. In January 2007, power theft amounting to Rs 4.7 lakh was detected from his Rajkot ashram.
Despite all these cases and allegations, Asaram Bapu's popularity is on the rise - particularly among the ruling party politicians in the state. "It is due to the clout of Asaram that no criminal case was registered against any of his ashram-members nor was anyone from the ashram arrested after the two boys of his gurukuls died under mysterious circumstances," said a rebel BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
The popularity of Asaram can be gauged from the fact that his photographs can be spotted in every government office across the state and even state transport corporation's buses display his photos and messages.
When the Gujarat Government in 2005 decided to rejuvenate the Saraswati river by filling long tracts of land considered to be the vestiges of the mythical river at Sidhpur town in Mehsana district, Asaram Bapu was the chief guest at the launch of the project. Though there are other religious leaders in the state, inviting him to such a high-profile programme as the chief guest explains the popularity of the man among the ruling party.
Again, when the state Government temporarily launched Vande Gujarat TV channel, telecasting its developmental achievements on the eve of December 2007 Assembly polls, the channel regularly carried footages of Asaram Bapu.
This explains the clout of Asaram Bapu whose religious movement has taken the shape of a cult, having followers in every section of the society. With his influence growing, there are many politicians, including Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, visiting his ashram regularly.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani is also believed to be one of the regular visitors to the ashram. The Ashram manager in Ahmedabad, Arvind Patel, is a senior BJP functionary.
Search:
Cult & Controversy: the story of Asaram ashram
Mon, Aug 11 03:48 AM
For the phenomenally influential religious guru, Asaram Bapu, his 37-year-long spiritual career had never been a cakewalk and the four mysterious deaths in his ashramss here and in Madhya Pradesh and the public ire he has been courting are only the latest that he hopes to shrug off.
His spiritual domain is spread across 300 ashrams throughout India, as also in the US, with lakhs of his followers and admirers flooding his commune with funds. Sixty-seven-year-old Bapu has even delivered a speech at the parliament of world religions.
Few controversies connected with his ashrams have invited media attention the way the deaths of four children in his two ashrams - in Ahmedabad and Chhindwara - did in just one month. His ashram, in both the cases, is facing serious problems, with investigators finally getting down to grilling inmates of the ashrams in connection with the deaths.
Asaram Bapu may not have had to look back ever since he set up his first kutia or hutment in Motera village here in 1971, but the path had all along been strewn with scandals.
Sindh-born Asaram, who had migrated to Ahmedabad with his parents during Partition, is facing about dozen-odd cases at different places - all of them pertaining to alleged land grabbing by his Sant Asaram Bapu Trust. One of the villagers in Motera, Ashok Thakore, has moved the court to get back five acres of his family's land allegedly grabbed by the ashram. According to Thakore, the land is situated adjoining the ashram and was used for erecting tents on the Guru Purnima day. Permission to this effect was given by his father to the ashram. After his father's death, the ashram grabbed it by saying that Thakore's father had 'gifted' it to the ashram. However, the ashram has not been able to substantiate its claim with proofs.
In another case, Anil Vyas, a farmer from Jehangirpura village near Surat, where the ashram is facing several allegations of land grabbing, is fighting a prolonged battle for recovery of his 34,400 square metres of prime land from the ashram. According to Vyas, despite the fact that the ashram's claim over the land was challenged in the court, the state Government regularised the unauthorised encroachment on January 24, 1997. However, the Gujarat High Court on December 8, 2006, held the regularisation illegal and decreed in favour of the farmer. The Ashram then appealed to the Division Bench against the order.
A Delhi-based widow, Sudarshan Kumari, is also fighting a legal battle against Asaram Bapu whose Trust, she alleges, had fraudulently got some papers signed by her. The paper later turned out to be a 'gift deed' to the ashram. The documents say that she has gifted the ground floor of her house in Rajouri Garden, New Delhi, to the ashram. According to her complaint, on July 6, 2000, on the pretext of taking her to Asaram satsang, she was taken to the office of Sub Registrar in Janakpuri, New Delhi. One of the inmates of the ashram, identified as Mani Kaka, hypnotised her and made her sign a number of documents, without allowing her to go through the content. The other person who signed the papers there, according to her, was Narayan Swamy, son of Asaram Bapu. She came to know about the gift deed when officials from the Municipal Committee of Delhi came to confirm it.
The ashram authorities at Rajokri village, near Gurgaon, have allegedly forged documents pertaining to the registration of the ashram. Bhagwani Devi, a resident of Rajokri, has also approached the Delhi High Court levelling allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Rajokri ashram.
Even Government agencies have levelled allegations of land grabbing against Asaram's Trust. A few months ago, the Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts (BSBRT) had served a notice to the Trust's headquarters in Ahmedabad, asking it to vacate a land belonging to BSBRT, worth Rs 80 crore. And in April 2007, a retired judge of the Patna High Court had filed a criminal complaint in Kadamkuan police station, Patna, alleging grabbing of his land by Asaram Bapu and others.
In Ratlam, Asaram's Trust had to vacate a piece of land after a prolonged litigation. In January 2007, power theft amounting to Rs 4.7 lakh was detected from his Rajkot ashram.
Despite all these cases and allegations, Asaram Bapu's popularity is on the rise - particularly among the ruling party politicians in the state. "It is due to the clout of Asaram that no criminal case was registered against any of his ashram-members nor was anyone from the ashram arrested after the two boys of his gurukuls died under mysterious circumstances," said a rebel BJP leader, requesting anonymity.
The popularity of Asaram can be gauged from the fact that his photographs can be spotted in every government office across the state and even state transport corporation's buses display his photos and messages.
When the Gujarat Government in 2005 decided to rejuvenate the Saraswati river by filling long tracts of land considered to be the vestiges of the mythical river at Sidhpur town in Mehsana district, Asaram Bapu was the chief guest at the launch of the project. Though there are other religious leaders in the state, inviting him to such a high-profile programme as the chief guest explains the popularity of the man among the ruling party.
Again, when the state Government temporarily launched Vande Gujarat TV channel, telecasting its developmental achievements on the eve of December 2007 Assembly polls, the channel regularly carried footages of Asaram Bapu.
This explains the clout of Asaram Bapu whose religious movement has taken the shape of a cult, having followers in every section of the society. With his influence growing, there are many politicians, including Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, visiting his ashram regularly.
Senior BJP leader L K Advani is also believed to be one of the regular visitors to the ashram. The Ashram manager in Ahmedabad, Arvind Patel, is a senior BJP functionary.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
Magazine Preview - Malwebolence - The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com
Magazine Preview - Malwebolence - The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com
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Malwebolence
Robbie Cooper for The New York Times
The Trolls Among Us: Weev (not, of course, his real name) is part of a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online.
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By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ
Published: August 3, 2008
This article will appear in this Sunday's Times Magazine.
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The Medium
Virginia Heffernan talks to the existence of trolls, mad scrollers and all matter of Internet denizens.
Comment Post a Comment at The Medium
Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web
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Robbie Cooper for The New York Times
“A normal person who does insane things on the internet.” Jason Fortuny in real life.
One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping of Mitchell’s newspaper obituary to MyDeathSpace.com, a Web site that links to the MySpace pages of the dead. From MyDeathSpace, Mitchell’s page came to the attention of an Internet message board known as /b/ and the “trolls,” as they have come to be called, who dwell there.
/b/ is the designated “random” board of 4chan.org, a group of message boards that draws more than 200 million page views a month. A post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost everyone posts as “anonymous.” In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon in reverse — nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center. The anonymous denizens of 4chan’s other boards — devoted to travel, fitness and several genres of pornography — refer to the /b/-dwellers as “/b/tards.”
Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand.
Something about Mitchell Henderson struck the denizens of /b/ as funny. They were especially amused by a reference on his MySpace page to a lost iPod. Mitchell Henderson, /b/ decided, had killed himself over a lost iPod. The “an hero” meme was born. Within hours, the anonymous multitudes were wrapping the tragedy of Mitchell’s death in absurdity.
Someone hacked Henderson’s MySpace page and gave him the face of a zombie. Someone placed an iPod on Henderson’s grave, took a picture and posted it to /b/. Henderson’s face was appended to dancing iPods, spinning iPods, hardcore porn scenes. A dramatic re-enactment of Henderson’s demise appeared on YouTube, complete with shattered iPod. The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls continued for a year and a half.
In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”
Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.
“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.
Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”
/b/ is not all bad. 4chan has tried (with limited success) to police itself, using moderators to purge child porn and eliminate calls to disrupt other sites. Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world.
But the logic of lulz extends far beyond /b/ to the anonymous message boards that seem to be springing up everywhere. Two female Yale Law School students have filed a suit against pseudonymous users who posted violent fantasies about them on AutoAdmit, a college-admissions message board. In China, anonymous nationalists are posting death threats against pro-Tibet activists, along with their names and home addresses. Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well.
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Mattathias Schwartz last wrote for the magazine about online poker. He is a staff writer at Good magazine and lives in New York.
New York Times
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* The Times Magazine
* T: Style
* Key
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Magazine Preview
Malwebolence
Robbie Cooper for The New York Times
The Trolls Among Us: Weev (not, of course, his real name) is part of a growing Internet subculture with a fluid morality and a disdain for pretty much everyone else online.
* Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
* Single Page
* Share
o Linkedin
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Article Tools Sponsored By
By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ
Published: August 3, 2008
This article will appear in this Sunday's Times Magazine.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
The Medium
Virginia Heffernan talks to the existence of trolls, mad scrollers and all matter of Internet denizens.
Comment Post a Comment at The Medium
Blogrunner: Reactions From Around the Web
Enlarge This Image
Robbie Cooper for The New York Times
“A normal person who does insane things on the internet.” Jason Fortuny in real life.
One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping of Mitchell’s newspaper obituary to MyDeathSpace.com, a Web site that links to the MySpace pages of the dead. From MyDeathSpace, Mitchell’s page came to the attention of an Internet message board known as /b/ and the “trolls,” as they have come to be called, who dwell there.
/b/ is the designated “random” board of 4chan.org, a group of message boards that draws more than 200 million page views a month. A post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost everyone posts as “anonymous.” In effect, this makes /b/ a panopticon in reverse — nobody can see anybody, and everybody can claim to speak from the center. The anonymous denizens of 4chan’s other boards — devoted to travel, fitness and several genres of pornography — refer to the /b/-dwellers as “/b/tards.”
Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand.
Something about Mitchell Henderson struck the denizens of /b/ as funny. They were especially amused by a reference on his MySpace page to a lost iPod. Mitchell Henderson, /b/ decided, had killed himself over a lost iPod. The “an hero” meme was born. Within hours, the anonymous multitudes were wrapping the tragedy of Mitchell’s death in absurdity.
Someone hacked Henderson’s MySpace page and gave him the face of a zombie. Someone placed an iPod on Henderson’s grave, took a picture and posted it to /b/. Henderson’s face was appended to dancing iPods, spinning iPods, hardcore porn scenes. A dramatic re-enactment of Henderson’s demise appeared on YouTube, complete with shattered iPod. The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls continued for a year and a half.
In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”
Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.
“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.
Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.”
/b/ is not all bad. 4chan has tried (with limited success) to police itself, using moderators to purge child porn and eliminate calls to disrupt other sites. Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world.
But the logic of lulz extends far beyond /b/ to the anonymous message boards that seem to be springing up everywhere. Two female Yale Law School students have filed a suit against pseudonymous users who posted violent fantasies about them on AutoAdmit, a college-admissions message board. In China, anonymous nationalists are posting death threats against pro-Tibet activists, along with their names and home addresses. Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well.
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Mattathias Schwartz last wrote for the magazine about online poker. He is a staff writer at Good magazine and lives in New York.
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