I am not arguing that members of the media are trolls, at least not in the subcultural sense. I am however suggesting that trolls and sensationalist corporate media have more in common than the latter would care to admit, and that by engaging in a grotesque pantomime of these best corporate practices, trolls call attention to how the sensationalist sausage is made. This certainly doesn't give trolls a free pass, but it does serve as a reminder that ultimately, trolls are symptomatic of much larger problems. Decrying trolls without at least considering the ways in which they are embedded within and directly replicate existing systems is therefore tantamount to taking a swing at an object's reflection and hanging a velvet rope around the object itself.

This is not to say that trolling is political. For one thing, the trolling spectrum is far too varied to attribute a singular political or behavioral focus. For another, many trolls explicitly deny having a purpose, and claim to be motivated by lulz and lulz alone (the statement "I did it for the lulz" functions as both explanation of and blithe justification for whatever trollish behavior). In cases where lulz aren't explicitly cited, the go-to explanation is that they're "just screwing around" and their only goal is to "rile people up." In either case, we're talking about privilege -- specifically the privilege to decide to what extent one's true views match up with the views one decides to present on the internet. So no, trolling isn't "political," at least not in any traditional sense. But it is politically loaded. Whether or not the trolls are making some thought-out social or political point (active grammatical construction used deliberately) political and social statements are made (passive grammatical construction used deliberately).

This point is just as applicable to Violentacrez. Yes he is guilty of a multitude of sins, both as a troll and as a man (Violentacrez is something of an enigma, as his trolling persona doesn't seem too far off from his real life persona--by his own account, he is the thing he plays on the internet). That said, Violentacrez sins aren't restricted just to Michael Brutsch. As Adrian Chen explains, they were tolerated by Reddit's paid staff and embraced by his fellow moderators (not to mention celebrated by a shockingly high number of fellow Redditors). Violentacrez was, in other words, important to the community. By examining not just what he did, but what others allowed and in many cases encouraged him to do, it is therefore possible to see into the heart of Reddit's administrative workings, whatever objections to the contrary its co-founders might present.

This may not be a pretty picture, in fact in Violentacrez' case it is quite ugly (placing in entirely new context the term "front page of the internet"). But like all trolls, Violentacerz shows us, purposefully or not, the underlying values of the host culture. Maybe not the individual values of individual users (i.e. just because Violentacrez derives pleasure from the sexual exploitation of women and minors does not mean that all Redditors derive pleasure from the sexual exploitation of women and minors), but at the very least his actions shine an uncomfortable light on what passes as "positive" community contribution, as well as the kinds of behaviors Reddit's paid staff and volunteer moderators are willing to protect -- apparently in the name of "making the world suck less."