I think basement dweller is much more likely. Let’s not forget, trolling is fun at a certain age. It’s a recreational activity, engaged in as a way to enjoyably pass the time. This is why the advice always used to be to not interact, and just starve them of any engagement so it stopped being enjoyable. To not feed them.
That stopped working when real effects also became achievable, but we shouldn’t forget that the first motivation is still there. Just because ignoring them won’t make them go away now, because they’re trying to actually work on a nebulous goal, doesn’t mean it ever stopped being fun.
I mean, is it so hard to believe, when we used to get regularly DDoSed and even occasionally hacked, that we’d also pick up some dedicated trolls from time to time? It’d frankly be pretty naive to think we’d be so lucky, if someone has ever spent any time in the seedier corners of the internet where these things come from.
It’s that fun aspect we have to remember. I mean, I disagree with ozma, Linker, jimmydore, lots of people very regularly, but they’re not stringing out dozen+ long comment chains just trying to irritate the person they’re interacting with at whatever moment. They’re not trolling, they just have strong opinions. It’s specifically that having fun at other people’s expense thing that makes this one different. And frankly, it’s very common on the internet, just usually not so much in moderated spaces, when the mods are being appropriately responsible. The rest of the internet is still out there though, can always go spend some time on 4chan’s /pol/ if you need to see the sorts of things we’re dealing with. Maybe a LoL lobby, I hear those are lovely. Maybe the comments sections under some Gamergate youtuber’s videos, or Ben Shapiro or someone.
Plenty of places you can find people that just want to have a good time at your expense. For fun, with just a side dose of fuck-the-world.
And then of course, there are those people who like to engage and accuse just so they can increase comment counts:
