How do some people have absolutely no trolldar?

[Doyoumind]

This isn't a TAAT so don't make it so, but it never ceases to amaze me how some people fall for the most obviously fake stories.

I am a trusting and quite gullible person in general but there are so many threads that immediately ring alarm bells for me.

If something sounds unusual or shocking and there is a drip feed of unlikely extra information, you should be very suspicious. If it's a first post you should be convinced.

It doesn’t have to be a first post a lot of people answer threads and do multiple posts over a short time so when you glance at their history it looks ok.

Because they are fantastically self absorbed.

They don't read a post objectively, but through a lens of 'aha - a stage for my virtue signalling/grief vampire tendencies/bandwagon jumping/me me me me me...'

But troll hunters are so often wrong.

A lot of people can't conceive of anything happening that is outside of their experience and are quick to cry 'troll'.

It's fucking annoying. Just report to MNHQ, no one is impressed by anyone's trolldar skills.

Maybe because some people don’t think like that and don’t have experience of trolling and being trolled.

Some people just take everything at face value and believe everything they read.

I don't troll hunt on threads. I report. I've never reported a thread that turned out to be genuine. I've seen horrible comments on threads that were genuine.

I'm not asking for people to troll hunt. I'm suggesting people approach things with a bit more caution rather than getting wrapped up in 20 or more pages of nonsense.

I agree with the virtue signalling and bandwagon jumping.

The tone for the thread is usually set very early on. If it's taken as genuine in the first few posts, other posters treat it as genuine. If people question it, that can also be jumped on.