I have every reason to believe that the majority of trolls on the English-speaking web are, like Violentacrez, white, male and somewhat privileged. Not because I have personally counted all the trolls on the English-speaking web, but because trolls perform these characteristics. They enact gendered dominance ("your resistance only makes my penis harder," a popular trolling refrain, speaks volumes). They universalize their own assumptions and ethical imperatives (for example the assertion that nothing on the Internet should be taken seriously). They have enough free time to sink hours and hours into their online exploits, and have access to the necessary technologies to do so. I am entirely comfortable asserting these basic symbolic demographics.

In addition to acknowledging the wide variety of trolling behaviors, it is just as important to note that simply saying nasty things online does not make someone a subcultural troll, nor does engaging in "good faith" (for lack of a better term) racism or sexism or homophobia. Not necessarily, anyway. Trolling in the subcultural sense may be afoot in these instances, but maybe not, immediately complicating the impulse to declare every aggressive or otherwise unsavory online behavior an act of trolling -- an impulse regularly exercised by those in the mainstream media.