Siting the Web: The Neo Counterculture of Creative Resistance through Internet Trolls

Abstract

The paper entitled Siting the Web: The Neo Counterculture of Creative Resistance through Internet Trolls is an enquiry into the emerging status of trolls as a form of a new generation counterculture, based on the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault. Trolls are specifically works of art or general comments intended to disrupt the internet society. Trolls have been used as a form of resistance against the power-bloc along with the hope for a better tomorrow. The paper analyses the power gained by internet trolls as a counter discipline, effectively interpellating the subjects with the help of the notion of panopticon. It also analyses the role of trolls in the gradual development of techniques of surveillance, whose function was far more complex and subtle than massive and spectacular displays of power. It also throws light on how the modern day troll culture reverses the concept of discipline through which docile bodies are created. That is, how the gaze is reversed.The paper aims to analyse the notion of trolls as a form of counterculture rather than as an innocent medium for entertainment.