We’re all familiar with trolls. No, not those trolls, or those, or even those. We’re talking about those people who antagonize others with hateful, violent, racist, misogynistic, and bilious comments on seemingly every single web page that allows comments. Their attempts to stir readers and garner a response are often quite obvious, which has led to the Internet refrain “Please don’t feed the troll!” That simply means don’t react to a clear attempt to get a reaction.

Trolling, and idiots posting to comment threads in general, has become so bad that Google, along with many, many other sites, now requires users to use their real – or at least G+ – names when commenting on YouTube videos, YouTube being the prime example of base-level Neanderthals provided with anonymity to say whatever they want. Many people went crazy about this requirement but I understand where they are coming from. In case you missed it, read this and prepare to be amazed. Rotten Tomatoes stopped allowing comments altogether because they became such a cesspool. CNN’s story about the Affordable Care Act famously garnered ultra-violent comments as described in this article covering the phenomenon, and the YouTube channel featuring a Cheerios ad with an interracial couple had to close the comments altogether they were so atrocious. In fact, Go to any national news site, any one at all, pick a random story and start reading the comments. I dare you. Trolling can occur in other on-line domains as well, just head on over to fatuglyorslutty.com as proof.

Now, a team of researchers in Canada have discovered that online trolls are actually classifiable sadists! I personally prefer the term troll, but both are good. Either way, they showed all the personality traits – including Machiavellianism which I’ll let slide because it sounds cool – of true sadists. I personally support the idea of discovering their identities and outing them, but I’ll leave that up to the pros.

What? Stop the presses!

Moral of the story: Don’t be a troll, or you might end up like this!