Anyone who’s ever been involved in managing online communities will know what a troll is.
Just in case you don’t, here’s Wikipedia’s take:
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
But trolling isn’t confined to the web. In recent days we’ve seen some great examples of real-life, corporate trolling.
Ryanair are masters of this game. They adore winding everyone up, from bloggers to regulators, for no discernible reason other than – and I’m guessing here - the fact that it’s incredibly good fun. Earnest blog posts from the public – like this one - which outline in hushed tones how Ryanair’s approach to PR could be construed as unfriendly and destructive must only make them wee their collective trousers with amusement.
Take today. Under the heartwarming headline Customers would like to see me dead, the Belfast Telegraph reports O’Leary’s view that:
“It will be a nicer, warmer, caring airline with me gone. I think half our passengers would like to see me dead and buried, actually, and eventually they’ll get what they want. Frankly, I couldn’t care less as long as they fly with us.” [...]
Asked about the qualities his successor would require he said: “All the qualities that I don’t have — sensitivity, passenger care, environmentally sensitive — all that kind of good, warm crap.”
Matching that level of provocation is no mean feat. The last 24 hours, though, have represented a highpoint in the history of corporate trolls.
Step forward Golden Goose PR, whose press release 5000 Festive Fatties Expelled From BeautifulPeople.com went nuclear this morning. It’s a brilliantly crass, targeted piece of writing about an “elite dating site” supposedly suspending members for having visibly over-indulged at Christmas.
Linking to even a fraction of the stories generated by this single release would take all evening, so I’ll invite you to view a sample via Google.
The press release reaches a crescendo with the one quote everyone reproduced (Michael O’Leary, for once you are bested here):
Robert Hintze, founder of BeautifulPeople.com, said: “As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld. Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”
Golden Goose are, I imagine, pleased with today’s response from the world’s media. Actually – we don’t need to imagine. Their corporate blog post earlier today enthused:
This mercinary culling has provoked mixed reactions on every media platform….we’re pleased to see that twitter is rife with reactions…
And demonstrating their understanding of just where the sweet spot in this piece of trolling lay, what was the search term they linked to on Twitter?
“fatties+roam”
Meanwhile BeautifulPeople.com itself is down at the time of writing, due – one can only assume – to excess traffic.
Somebody earned their pennies today.
Update 05/01: From Hitwise Intelligence – “UK Internet visits to the site increased fifty-fold yesterday. As a result, Beautiful People became the fifth most visited website in our Lifestyle – Dating category, up from 136th the day before.”
