Trolls
- This article is about troll personas. For how trolls manipulated Chris, see Chris and manipulation.
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PROTIP:
Do not try to troll Chris. The golden age of trolling Chris is never coming back. Chris is a shell of the person he once was and is living in much more depressing circumstances than the ones that made him an infamous lolcow.
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| “ | That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is not the abnormally clever... That which can condemn the abnormally foolish is the normally foolish. | ” |
| GK Chesterton | ||
| “ | ...[T]hey are vicious, crazy, wickedly smart people. | ” |
| Chris on trolls.[1] | ||
| “ | What a world we live in, with such trolls in it. | ” |
| Bubbles, Sonichu #8. | ||
Trolls are various individuals of all races, colors, and creeds united under a common goal - to mess with the life of, and extract as many lulz from the Internet's most beloved and most hated autistic manchild, Chris Chan, as possible. The organized effort to troll Chris began in earnest in 2007, and still has momentum going for it, even if it peaked after disbanding of the Classic-era trolls following the death of Chris's father in 2011.
Trolling schemes by these individuals have ranged from manipulating Chris into a Truman Show-like existence, making him rage on video, making him take pictures of himself unclothed, accelerating the breaking of his sense of reality, and more.
Pre-ED
It is notable that Chris was bullied in real life before his discovery by 4chan and ED. It can be argued that the first known torment of Chris occurred when his lifelong-friend-who-no-longer-speaks-to-him, Sarah Nicole Hammer, locked him under the house when they were children. The next notable bullying occurred during the infamous mini-date with Hanna in 2005 which smashed his heart level to 15%. Around the same time, he was also trolled by a girl he contacted through MySpace named Lindsay Kaye. There was also possible trolling of Chris through the guestbook on his website from as early as 2003, when "a hot redhead" said that she would meet him outside of PVCC (either this was epic trolling, or Chris put it on the guestbook himself). And let's not forget about Mary Lee Walsh and The GAMe PLACe hijinks.
But this was all child's play compared to what happened next....
The Miscreants
| “ | Y'all are making me very nervous right now. | ” |
| Chris on The Miscreants.[2] | ||
The Miscreants were a group of people who trolled Chris from 2009 up until his father's death in 2011. Clyde Cash was the original leader of The Miscreants, which was styled after The Patriots, the shadowy cabal from the Metal Gear series who are revealed to be behind a conspiracy spanning decades, including all of the main incidents the protagonists go through. They claimed to be responsible for several unfortunate events in Chris's past, which Chris seemingly believed.
On 23 February 2009, The Miscreants approached Chris in Mumble and informed him of their plan. Several "HA-HA, I got you!" videos were made, all with false information. To deal with these Internet bullies Chris resorted to babbling incoherently.
After the disappearance of Clyde Cash, the site[3] was down for a few weeks, with the message that "Clyde's dead, baby." After that, the website returned, apparently re-uploaded by Vivian Gee. Part of the site description read "Name's Vivian. Guess I'm the new leader or some shit. Fuck y'all." On 28 June 2009, the Miscreants set up shop at the Private Villa of Corrupted Citizens message board.
While online wars have been waged, Men in Pickle Suits have also been deployed to ruin Chris in reality. These exploits have included stealing his date, obtaining potentially life-ruining material, and generally being lulzy. They also seemed to treat Chris's father Bob Chandler as one of their own.
While the group's explicit purpose, according to Cash, was to ensure that Chris never got laid and forever remain a Virgin with rage, that didn't stop them from sending a bunch of prostitutes to Chris's house. Nonetheless, Chris got the last laugh when he hired a prostitute.
Since the death of Bob, the Miscreants have effectively disbanded, with pretty much everyone involved distancing themselves from Chris, and only a few (such as Surfshack Tito) continuing their efforts before eventually losing interest. Years after the fact, some have admitted that they took things too far when reflecting on this era of Christory, while others look back with a sense of smug satisfaction.
Adam Stackhouse
In 2007 Chris would enter the Chop Chop Master Onion's Rap Showdown, in an attempt to win over Megan's heart. Adam Stackhouse would win instead, due to his video being superior. This would prompt a tard rage, in which he created a fake webpage proclaiming himself the winner[4], as well as a creepy video in which he shoots a photo of Adam and his sister with his Megatron Pistol in silence and exclaims his anger at the end.
Alec Benson Leary
Creator of Asperchu, a webcomic that was specifically designed to piss Chris off. This started a long war between Sonichu and the aforementioned Asperchu in which Alec and the Asperpedia Four caused the death of Simonla Rosechu, placed ads for the Asperpedia on the CWCipedia, and eventually took control of the CWCipedia and took it down. Alec and Chris exchanged a series of nine calls over the course of the war. Alec has also been responsible for other trollsome personas, including Lars and Jackie.
BILLY MAYS
The infamous loud-mouthed salesman of the same name who types in ALL CAPS. He was declared the mayor of CWCville by Chris on 3 March 2009 while under pressure from Max. It is widely suspected that Chris himself had something to do with his untimely death.
Blanca Weiss
"Blanca" was really a trio of trolls (RickyRicardo123, Ickeriss69, and Nurse Icky-chan) who tricked Chris into sending them nudes, and later his Sonichu medallion. Ickeriss later uploaded a couple of videos featuring the Sonichu medallion, including a video in which the medallion is destroyed.
Not to be confused with LordSillyNipples, who used the Blanca identity to score the first nudes.
BlueSpike
BlueSpike (AKA "LeonSpike", aka "Julie", aka "Max") is a thirteen-year-old boy who pretended to be Chris's sweetheart, "Julie". He later revealed himself as a troll in a now infamous hour-long phone call, in which he berates Chris, and forces him to cut up his Sonichu medallion and shove it up his ass.
Bryan Bash
Bryan Bash is a close friend of Clyde Cash. He is the one who sent hookers over to Chris's house, as well as the person who called during the infamous "Bob Walks In" audio file, and is responsible for leaking CWCRockin4Way.jpg. Additionally, he leaked the Father Call and the Kacey and Liquid Call to /cwc/ on 11 November 2009, and he has also leaked conversations between Chris and Jack Thaddeus.
Clyde Cash
The nefarious Clyde Cash is the most infamous and legendary of trolls. A vile and reprehensible fellow whose very name strikes fear and revulsion into Chris's clogged heart and inspires admiration from the souls of the people. He posed as Shigeru Miyamoto, raped Chris's beloved PandaHalo, and performed many more amazing feats about which songs shall be written and the minstrels shall sing of in the ages immemorial. Unfortunately it will not come to pass since Clyde is serving a life sentence for stealing the identity of Lee Hotti.
Emily
A brave soul who went on a date with Chris. She was later saved by the Jew in the Pickle Suit.
Jack Thaddeus
The possible successor (and gay lover) of Clyde Cash and is responsible for various PSN-related trollings and also for the CWCipedia ads.
Jimmy Hill
A British sportscaster. He claimed to be the true original creator of Sonichu, the first openly gay cartoon character which briefly became very popular in Europe in 2009.
Jason Kendrick Howell
The original creator of the ED page.
The Man in the Pickle Suit
A real-life pickleman who answers to Clyde Cash. He saved Emily from the clutches of Chris.
Liquid Chris
A YouTube troll who is known for doing a spot-on impersonation of Chris-chan. Within his saga, Liquid Chris is referred to as the TRUE and HONEST Chris-chan and creator of the popular comic character Sonichu, and Solid is referred to as an angry troll named Ian Brandon Anderson, who made outlandish claims that he was the real Chris.
Lordsillynipples
A troll from ED who was responsible for impersonating Blanca and being the first to obtain the now infamous Chris-chan noodz on 11 September 2008, along with Chris's DVD. She is also responsible for giving birth to the Man in the Pickle Suit and for feeding Chris the infamous guido picture of Clyde.
Robert Simmons V
A YouTube troll who managed to gain Chris's trust by showing him support and mirroring his life. Along with visiting Chris's church and meeting Bob, he also had a hand in organizing the Emily date.
Shigeru Miyamoto
Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂) is the creator of some of Nintendo's most legendary video game franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Star Fox. He pretended to be interested in his yellow Sonic abortion. It would later come to light that Miyamoto was a sockpuppet of Clyde.
Surfshack Tito
An enigmatic troll who managed to invoke Chris's wrath on two separate occasions by hacking his PSN and taking the blame for ruining Chris's slim chances with The Wallflower. He was also involved in the destruction of Chris's beloved PS3.
Thorg
A troll responsible for creating a slanderous billboard in 2009 and exposing Tomboys And Tomgirls of Virginia in 2011. A major part of Chris's 2011 blackmail campaign.
Vivian Gee
The creator of the Sonichu audiobooks and various other Chris-related videos and cousin of Clyde Cash. A former white knight who turned troll after she realized Chris was a hopeless, thick-skulled moron. She and Clyde Cash were both personas created by the same troll.
Post-Bob's death
Following Bob's death in 2011, the then-current group of trolls disbanded to give Chris room to grieve. In the years that followed, new trolls would eventually crop up.
Thetan
Impersonated Chris's former high school classmates.[5]
Catherine and friends
Catherine is a fake love interest who conspired with Marvin by manipulating OKCupid results to match with Chris's.[6] She used this influence for another sweetheart saga which included meeting him in real life to surreptitiously record his conversations.
Accompanying her is a group of others that would interact with Chris, such as Cousin Al who met him IRL and found the Manchester High Leaks, Colin, who was a member of their open relationship, Shaina, Renee and Rebeckah who would e-mail Chris frequently.
Jeff/Francine
The mysterious creator of CWC Adult Chronicles. Targeted by Chris for selling unofficial Sonichu merchandise and in a blatant act of hypocrisy, was made fun of for her transition.
Johan
An ex-gay porn star who challenged Chris for the rights to impregnate two lesbians. After a sex-off, Johan's superior body and non-bent duck won them over.
Jessica Quinn
A former white knight who played the long con by becoming his sweetheart. Known for her fat fetishism before ditching him and coming back and forth to toy with him.
Fantasy Enablers
Beginning in October 2017, the Idea Guys exploited Chris's fantasy coping mechanisms to gain power over him. Since then, numerous enablers have used similar methods.
Idea Guys
A group of trolls whose actions rivaled and arguably surpassed those of BlueSpike. They remain infamous for how they manipulated and brainwashed Chris over a period of several months, coercing him into performing degrading acts and extorting him out of thousands. The Idea Guys hastily vanished after the emergence of the Guard Dogs, who set about attempting to reverse all the Idea Guys had wrought. Nonetheless, Chris maintains many of their influences in the current day, chief among them the beliefs that he's a CPU goddess, the Dimensional Merge, and his imaginary polyamorous marriage.
Teen Troon Squad
A group of transgender teenagers who posed as his friends. They took advantage of Chris's faltering sense of reality by feeding him information on the Dimensional Merge and taking over his Twitter account. Rumored to have given Chris marijuana.
Jacob Sockness
A mysterious man from San Francisco, California, who aimed to manipulate Chris into a relationship. He had primarily served to only further enable the beliefs planted in Chris's head by the Idea Guys, as well as bolster Chris's beliefs in the Dimensional Merge. After Sockness stated that he was taking a train across the country to meet with Chris in person, Chris insisted that Sockness stop after realizing Sockness was a legitimate danger. While Sockness relented and went back to California, he still ended up continuing to try and force his way back into Chris's life on repeated occasions, only to be aggressively rejected by Chris in late November 2019. Despite this, Sockness made several more attempts at returning. Eventually being repeatedly chastised by Chris on Twitter in July 2020, and finally being permanently blocked by Chris by the end of August 2020.
Ben Saint
A webcomic artist who expressed an interest in Chris two years prior. Ben entered into a squabble with Chris after getting him and Night Star involved in his latest comic series promoting his latest project, Endless War. The interaction would then lead to a battle over the canonicity over the events of the comic, with the two sides providing contradictory narratives.
Larry Vaughn
A troll who attempted to somewhat follow in the footsteps of the Idea Guys. His grandiose plans of using Magi-Chan as a hostage to make Chris drive to Disney World were stopped before they could begin, but Vaughn did manage to have Chris send bizarre Twitter DMs to various individuals.
Sonichu and Rosechu
While there's no definitive proof of these two being trolls, they have been known to dispense advice for Chris from time to time, especially on the subject of relationships.[7] Considering the results derived from said advice, one cannot help but wonder about their true motivations.
Devil Trolls
Aside from the several notable figures above, the Devil Trolls are mysterious, evil creatures that appear in Chris's Sonichu comic series. These creatures are first mentioned in Sonichu #9 and make their first full appearance in Sonichu #10.
Like many beings within Chris's comics, the Devil Trolls are inspired by his encounters in real life. Devil Trolls represent the various trolls that have given him such stress over his lifetime. This is shown when Chris encounters a set of them attacking a room containing his stuff from one of his earlier websites.
The Devil Trolls make their first mentioned appearance as some sort of grass protrusions taking away the fallen "IBAChandler" after Sonichu defeats him in Sonichu #9. They make their full appearance in Sonichu #10, as Chris-Chan Sonichu encounters them inside a room containing his pictures from his various websites. Seeing as Chris can't create anything without ripping off original designs, Devil Trolls resemble those old Troll toys, minus their gems, with long tails and demon-like wings. They also sport sharp teeth.
Motivations
Chris's perspective
Chris himself has a very simplistic view of what motivates his enemies. When a Mailbag correspondent asked him to explain why he's trolled, and why so many people seem to hate him, Chris had this ingenious response:
| “ | "Tehy're just jealous that they did not think of Sonichu first, or that I am more Artistically Talented than they are." | ” |
| Chris, Mailbag #5 | ||
This is consistent with the advice given to many children who are harassed in real life: that bullies are merely jealous of you, and want to see you react unfavorably, when in reality, bullies abuse others for many different motives, jealousy being only one of them. Furthermore, internet trolls typically do what they do for their own amusement, and not always out of some personal slight against their target. Since Chris never moved past high school mentally, he still believes he is hated because he is so much better than everyone else.
From his own attempts to illustrate trolling, it's obvious that Chris has no concept of how it works. When he tried his hand at impersonation, he thought that we'd all be trolled if he pretended to be an epic troll, but then a troll saw through his lie and forced him to drop the ruse on pain of having his tugboat taken away. Chris believes that trolling has two steps: pretend to be someone you're not and then "troll" someone by revealing who you really are. Silvana, a character based on his perception of forum trolls who claim to be people they aren't, thinks it's hilarious to pretend to be Meg Griffin, kiss Chris, and then transform once she's out of sight. As a result, Chris walks away happy, unaware that he just kissed a tranny, defeating the entire point of "trolling" him.
A tool he has used to fight against his hated trolls is claiming that they are all homosexuals, combining his two major hates into one massive force of nature. The earliest this is seen is message he wrote in his Mailbag section, exploding in rage over an added Twitter and how they could talk about him behind his back. Even more, in his CWCipedia article on The Wallflower, Chris has also decided that the trolls are also black.
Unsurprisingly, Chris also considers trolling a crime, and has somehow dedicated himself to stop trolling. However, Chris's views on trolling are very very skewed, as he believes that all trolling is equal to what he had done to him. In EXCLUSIVE Manchester High School 2000 Reunion Required NOW, he told people how to act on the Internet mere moments after revealing his real name, address, and phone number.
As the years passed, Chris's take on trolls has erupted into a massive flight of fancy. Because he has been refused admittance to The GAMe PLACe, Chris has proclaimed that the entire store is a massive front for Internet trolling, with Michael Snyder as the ringleader of it all. He also sees the CWCki Forums, Kiwi Farms and Reddit as a major gathering place for trolls.
His parents' perspective
The Matthew Noble call in August 2010 revealed some interesting insights into Bob and Barbara Chandler's interpretation of what has happened to their son over the years. Chris's parents are apparently convinced that the entire Chris-chan Trolldom grew out of a conspiracy by Michael Snyder, two alleged homosexuals who frequented The GAMe PLACe (possibly Lucas and Mimms), and Megan Schroeder, who worked to get Chris banned from the store and are involved with a general effort to harass and torment Chris. When speaking with Ivy, Bob described Megan with words like "cruel" and "German". Bob was convinced that it is all because they are persecuting Chris for being autistic, while in reality he was scaring away customers with his behavior and sexually harassing Megan.
It's useful to try to consider things from his parents' point of view. To begin with, there is a worldwide conspiracy, more or less, to pester the Chandlers, violate their privacy, drive their son to do ridiculous things, and otherwise fuck with them in a myriad of ways. Bob and Barbara are bombarded by prank phone calls all day, nude photos, God knows what else arrive in their mail, signs mysteriously appearing on their lawn, Chris having angry screaming matches with people they've never met on the telephone, Chris once drove off to Ohio to meet a woman who didn't exist, and so on.
Being Chris's parents must be a fairly surreal experience at this point, and given that they belong to a much older generation, they can hardly be expected to develop the grasp of Internet social phenomena that they'd need to properly understand their situation. The GAMe PLACe, however small a piece of the bigger picture it may be, is the most significant real, physical element of Chris's adventures in trolldom that they've been exposed to. As ridiculous as their theory may seem, it's probably the best they can do as far as making sense of what has happened and continues to happen to them.
Chris the troll
While the idea of everyone's favorite manchild becoming the one thing he hates seems kind of farfetched, if not laughably ironic, it actually isn't too far off as one might think. Because of his horrendous misconceptions of what he thinks his trolls does, Chris believes that, if given a new target, Chris's trolls would gladly stop attacking him and go after that new target. In the past, Chris has tried to deflect his trolls towards people like Joshua Martinez, Michael Snyder and even Mimms. However, Chris has been so entrenched with his trolls and viewers that the idea of going after someone else doesn't seem feasible anymore.
As well, Chris has even attempted to troll his own trolls. One of the first known attempts was the Rollin' and Trollin' video, claiming that he had pulled the most epic prank on the Internet, only to turn around the very next day and reveal that it was a lie. Sonichu #10, as mentioned above, had his comic book self thinking he had kissed Meg Griffin, not knowing that it was actually Silvana. As well, on 28 April 2012, he attempted to convince his trolls that he had decided to return to the mall and resume his Love Quest, armed with his Attraction Sign. Again, he revealed the next day that it was a lie and that he had gotten banned from the mall just before he decided to pull it.
Interestingly, Chris's perception of being a troll is less about trolling to get a rise out of someone and more of attempting to pull a prank. His "return" to the Love Quest is probably the biggest indicator of that. Chris let his trolls know through his Facebook, then waited a day before shouting "SURPRISE!". As well, he also believed that if someone reads his message, he's going to assume that everyone has and that they are going to descend on the mall like a bad flash mob just to find Chris. Too bad everyone, unlike Chris, has lives of their own.
However, if there is one person that Chris himself has successfully trolled, without a shadow of a doubt, it's himself. Proof of this can be directly pointed to his bad habit of surrendering information about himself, no matter how embarrassing, demeaning, or downright stupid giving out said tidbits of himself would be. Chris often screams at his trolls for not leaving him alone, but, aside from the fact that his antics only add more fuel to the fire, he always fails to realise that if he didn't give them ammo to begin with, he wouldn't have ended up in this predicament. A shining example of this would be the 2013 Imgur Leak. Chris could have ranted about the trolls, and most would have shrugged and assumed that he's just being angry in typical Chris-Chan fashion. That is, until Chris revealed the reason why he got upset, inadvertently revealing the Facebook posts he was keeping a secret, as well as some very unsavory information that could get him arrested if taken seriously.
It just goes to show you, nobody trolls Chris better than Chris. Chris is the type to not only shoot himself in the foot, but reload, fire again, and repeat the cycle while blaming the trolls. He just never learns.
Chris's relationship with the trolls
Although he would never admit it, Chris eventually developed something of a love-hate relationship with the trolls, which became clear during the Liquid Saga. When Clyde trolled Liquid Chris in a phone call, Chris attempted to redirect Clyde to himself, angered by Liquid's slanderous attempt at stealing his trolls. In an E-mail to Vivian, Chris also thanked the trolls for documenting the information he revealed to them and allowing him to mature emotionally. Although the trolls were a nuisance to Chris, their antics were far more thrilling than Chris's hopelessly shitty yet mundane lifestyle, which left him unfulfilled and desperate for adversity. The trolls served as black-and-white antagonists for Chris, giving him a perceived purpose in life and allowing him to live out his fantasies as a hero pitted against one-dimensional villains. This was likely a factor in Chris's susceptibility to trolling.
Eventually, Chris's desire for a more exciting life of heroes fighting against villains was fully exploited by the Idea Guys and other enablers. As a result, Chris now believes that he already leads the same life as his fantasy counterpart, and has lost interest in traditional trolls. He even started thanking them for helping him discover his true self.
Today
- Main article: Weening
Since the death of Chris's father, the loss of his home and his plummet to the breadline, Chris has changed profoundly. No longer is he the naïve, clown-shirted, indifferent egotist ED discovered in 2007; instead, he is a jaded, chronically depressed, cross-dressing child trapped in an adult's body, who is not as susceptible to, capable of dealing with, and arguably, as deserving of trolling as he used to be.
Many of those who continue to follow his activities are beginning to opine that he has suffered enough, and that active trolling, even where it is successful, doesn't produce the results it used to, takes more effort due to his inflated paranoia, tends to lead to small groups monopolizing Chris and hoarding the information they gather (as happened with Blanca and Catherine), and in some cases, causes needless emotional damage to Chris. For example, the revelation that Chris's latest girlfriend, Catherine, was yet another troll persona in early November 2014 provoked disgust and disappointment, as many felt that not only was it unoriginal and no longer funny, but the trolls had spent weeks, if not months stringing him along and toying with him, including tricking him into grovelling for "Catherine"'s continued affection. Many felt this amounted to emotional abuse of an already broken and miserable shell of a man, some were even disappointed as they felt that after all Chris had gone through, he deserved a lucky break, and a real relationship for a change.
Further, this was accompanied by the revelation that the same group of trolls had also fabricated Chris's denunciation by his high school friends, leading to many questioning the morality of impersonating Chris's old friends just to get a reaction out of him, and of course, the terrifying Orwellian nightmare that such trolling has left Chris in, as virtually every aspect of Chris's social life is engineered by trolls and he has no way of knowing what or who is real – even his own family.
Chris's transformation has also coincided with, and perhaps influenced, a shift in trolling. Active, chronic trolling such as Chris has experienced is now generally looked down upon as weening and attention whoring, instead it has become more fashionable to leave a lolcow like Chris to their own devices for the most part, and observe, rather than continually provoke. Proponents note that many major events in Chris's life have happened independent of troll influence, such as him burning down his own home, his various outings to Charlottesville and beyond (and many subsequent IRL bans), his bizarre dealings with Mary Lee Walsh and of course, the infamous 28 October 2011 and 26 December 2014 incidents. It can also be argued that much (if not most) of the trolling that Chris experienced since his discovery in 2007 was weening as well.
See also
- 2012 Poster campaign
- 4-cent garbage.com
- A-Logging
- CWCki
- Enablers
- Encyclopedia Dramatica
- Kick the Autistic
- PVCC
- Rollin' and Trollin'
- Watchmen - The inverse of the Miscreants
- Weening
- White knight
References
- ↑ Tomboys And Tomgirls of Virginia
- ↑ Mumble 9
- ↑ The Miscreants Website
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20071108233910/http://members.aol.com/CWCSonichu/EPPromotions283.html
- ↑ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/6-22-chris-at-too-many-games-convention.44691/post-3494509
- ↑ https://kiwifarms.net/threads/random-chris-updates.23605/post-2798964 (archive: https://archive.fo/0wRXL)
- ↑ Jackie_E-mails_16
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