Looking back at the first brigading attack I ever experienced, hundreds of messages pouring in within the space of hours, I now understand the oblique references to 4chan and 9gag “turf”—the allusions to troll armies and point scoring. I realize that my experience, my terror, was the game board between two warring groups of online abusers, each loyal to a different forum, glorying in the escalating fantasies of destroying my body, which represented the playing pieces of their game, with the ultimate goal being my destruction by withdrawal from the internet and from my job, victory sought at
...more
