An army of Internet Trolls may have helped elect Donald Trump as the president of the most powerful country in the world. Yes, you got that right - internet trolls. Often dubbed "the underbelly of the internet," a website called 4chan is responsible for many online pranks, some of them incredibly vicious and some insanely funny, but they seem to have taken things to a whole new level over the past year or so. Have they managed to pull the biggest prank ever?
Online guerilla marketing - Donald Trump's trolls
When Donald Trump announced he was running for the President of the United States, only a few took him seriously.
He was considered a joke candidate - a real estate mogul and a reality TV star, desperate for attention. Pundits, journalists, and bloggers all over the world ridiculed his behavior. He was the butt of every joke for months.
While some may argue that Mr. Trump bullied his way into the White House - insulting journalists and other candidates, making the world laugh with (or at?) him, he wouldn't have gotten where he is now without the help of his loyal online fan base.
It all started on 4chan, but word quickly spread and the_donald was born. The_donald is a subreddit (a Reddit forum dedicated to a particular topic - in this case, Donald Trump) that has about half a million subscribers at the moment of writing this.
We are talking about 500 000 people ready to troll the internet in the name of "God Emperor," as they often refer to the President. They flood social media with memes and Pepe images, looking to provoke some reaction. The target of their "attacks" are, more often than not, liberals. While Trump's trolls refer to every leftist as a liberal, they have managed to group them into different categories, with their favorite target being, you guessed it - Hillary Clinton supporters.
What does the future hold?
While Donald Trump may have been initially unaware of his online fan base, he has acknowledged and accepted it, later on, fueling 4chan and Reddit troll's inherent desire to take action. Mr. Trump even conducted an AMA (Ask me Anything - an interview that occurs between one Reddit user and all the other users who ask questions) on the_donald and tweeted Pepe memes himself.
The members of this internet fan base are often considered to be a part of the alt-right movement, which has inadvertently lead to Pepe (the mascot of the entire movement) being considered a white supremacy symbol.
In this chaotic mess of contradictions, a single conclusion arises: Whether we like it or not, internet trolls have played a huge part in Donald Trump becoming the President of the United States. What does that say about the society we live in? Perhaps more than we'd like to admit.
