Trolling isn't always a bad thing.
It's just the mean-spirited trolls who give it a bad rap. Granted, those are the majority of trolls, but every once in a while, some noble souls have a higher purpose in mind when they decide to be annoying. Let's all take a moment to recognize the achievement of those who seek to make the world a better place by trolling in the name of justice.
1. South Park takes on the Washington Redskins name controversy.
In the 18th season premiere of South Park, the boys start a company called "Washington Redskins" after learning that the football team lost the rights to their name due to its offensive nature. In a promo for the episode, the owner of the Redskins demands his team name back, saying that it's "derogatory" and "offensive" for the boys to use it. The scene does a great job of skewering the discussion surrounding the controversy, but what's even more impressive is the fact that they aired it during a Redskins game after buying commercial time in Washington, D.C., specifically to mess with Redskins fans. This makes me want to start watching sports.
2. Twitter destroys Paula Deen.
After Paula Deen caught a lot of heat for some racist comments, she kept tweeting from her official account as if nothing had happened. Twitter wasn't going to let her off that easy, though, and after she tweeted this—
—she got a barrage of hilarious responses from black people on Twitter:
This kills me with laughter faster than Paula Deen's food kills me.
3. Someone pretends to be Target customer service so they can make fun of customers opposing their new gender neutral policy.
After Target announced that it would be trying to make its sections less gender-specific, a bunch of people started commenting on their Facebook page about how they were terrible, ruining America, etc. Someone decided to make a fake Facebook account and pretend to be Target customer service. They responded to people's anger with some awesome zingers. It was glorious.
4. Patton Oswalt makes a puzzle poem to get everyone to stop being outraged so quickly.
Patton Oswalt loves proving points on Twitter and this was perhaps his magnum opus. He sent a series of two-part tweets that when read together, are totally logical things to say, but when read separately, one of the tweets read like a hate crime. Of course, people took them out of context, and were quick to label him a bigot. He definitely got the last laugh, though, when they realized he was messing with them. For example:
And here's another:
And here's another, just for fun:
5. A crowdfunding campaign to send M. Night Shyamalan back to film school.
M. Night Shyamalan is the Weezer of directors. He made some good stuff early in his career, and then got so, so terrible. Some fans couldn't take it anymore, and started a crowdfunding campaign to send him back to film school. Although it's supposed to be a joke (they've only raised ~$700), they made a pretty great point. Shyamalan doesn't seem to be getting the message, though.
6. Weezer was similarly humiliated.
Speaking of Weezer, some non-fans started a crowdfunding campaign with a $10 million goal. The idea? To give Weezer the money in exchange for them breaking up.
7. A bunch of people mistook a political blog for the Supreme Court. They didn't seem to mind.
SCOTUSblog is a private blog that publishes pieces about the United States supreme court. After gay marriage was legalized, people assumed that @SCOTUSblog was the Twitter handle for the Supreme Court (they don't have a Twitter, because they probably wouldn't be able to come to a consensus on how it should be run). Naturally, they started receiving a lot of misdirected anti-gay backlash, and instead of correcting their haters, they responded with some amazing snark.
8. The Foo Fighters rick-rolled the Westboro Baptist Church.
For some reason, the Westboro Baptist Church considers the Foo Fighters an affront to god—they've demonstrated outside of their shows in Kansas city twice. During the most recent demonstration, Internet-sweetheart Dave Grohl and his Foo posse drove by them in a truck and blasted Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" to get them to STFU. If God exists, he was smiling down from the heavens.
9. Two Londoners exposed ISIS for how stupid and bombastic they are.
Ahmad al-Mahmoud and his friend Firas were bored, so they made up an Iraqi town called "Shichwa" and claimed that the Hashd al-Shaabi, an Iran-backed Shia militia group, had pushed ISIS out of it. They also photoshopped fake news reports to back up the story. All of a sudden, the Internet exploded. ISIS supporters were tweeting about getting revenge, pro-Iraqi government supporters were relishing in a victory, and al-Mahmoud was accused of being a secret Sunni agent. Al-Mahmoud and Firas, who are anti-ISIS but also critical of the Iraqi government, were laughing at how quickly everyone was adding their own, made-up facts to the story. They were also laughing because "Shichwa" means "milk pouch" in Arabic.
10. R. Kelly's AMA backfired.
In order to promote an upcoming album, R. Kelly planned to answer fan questions on Twitter using the hashtag #AskRKelly. It failed miserably. Fans started questioning him about his run-ins with the law over child pornography, and it was hilarious.
11. CollegeHumor threw shade at the Indian government.
The Indian government banned CollegeHumor, along with a bunch of other (websites) in a stupid censorship campaign. To get back at them, they published a piece called "12 Facts I Made Up About India Because They Can't See This Right Now." Too bad they can't see it right now!