by Lyan Wilton Aguilar | April 29, 2022
Ever since the advent of social media, there have already been internet trolls and, in our case, political trolls. However, their presence hadn’t been as rampant on social media platforms as they are now with the elections coming closer and closer. They are everywhere in every post doing their job with alarming efficiency and it can be triggering to some people mindlessly scrolling the internet.
So, how should we deal with them? What’s the best plan of action? Before everything, let us dive in on the history of trolls.
In a nutshell…
What is bardagul?
Respond with meme-ing. Bardagul is Intentionally designed to derail discussions or cause the biggest reaction with the least effort. This is effective to the trolls since this is how they are moving, more like fighting fire with fire but unlike the trolls, you integrate facts and logic with joking rather than making false statements.
What are trolls?
These are people who want to provoke and upset others online for their amusement.
Why do they exist?
They exist because they are paid to do this kind of thing. Trolling is another way to convince others that who they are voting for is the better candidate by trashing the other ones.
How do they do it?
Since everything on the internet values quantity, these trolls are here to do that. Their task is to react or comment positively to positive posts about their candidate and react or comment negatively to posts of other candidates. Sometimes, they often have scripts for added effectiveness.
Why do they do it?
Money.
There are various healthy ways to deal with trolls, but since we’re not talking about just clueless citizens, for me, the best way is to bardagul.
Other people value the truth, which is good since they can just be taught by giving them facts, resibos, and track records. Still, in the face of trolls, that doesn’t matter because aside from being dense like a mofo, don’t forget that they are paid and it is their job.
Since we know how washed-up they are, the best course of action is to fight fire with fire and let trolls realize how stupid they are by using their logic, which is nonexistent. The usual way of dealing with them is to give them facts and records, but they will think of you that you’re desperate if you do this. Trolls have complex critical thinking skills, giving you the most intellectual reply to every comment. They often reply with, “Naa napod ni sila [Here they go again],” and “Respect my opinion.” So, respond with something similar to how they reply, doing this might make them realize how non-sensical their arguments are.
We know that bardagulan isn’t the best thing to do, but some people are beyond our help. They’re that level of fanatics to their candidate, so no matter how much information you give them, they will not listen. Just make them listen to themselves by copying their complex cerebral capacity.
#ThouShallNotSteal
