new (to me) lexical item: "concern trolling"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Alice Faber <faber at haskins.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> On 4/9/12 12:08 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >
> > An early WOTY candidate, or has everyone been aware of concern trolling
> > for longer than I have?  Ben?
>
> The phrase has been used on progressive blogs like pandagon.com,  for a
> number of years. The oldest instance I can find in a quick search of
> shakesville.com is from 2007:
> <http://www.shakesville.com/2007/06/fight-teh-gay-with-sharpie.html>.
> The oldest one I can find on Pandagon is mid-2008. Both instances
> presume that the reader will understand the term without any explication.

The noun "concern troll" has been around since at least 2005. In a
1/14/05 post on the Metacomments blog, it shows up as a variation on
"concerned troll":

---
http://web.archive.org/web/20050312161350/http://metacomments.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_metacomments_archive.html
A Troll Bestiary [...]
We'll start with that subspecies of Trollus Assholicus I personally
hold in greatest contempt, The "Concerned" Troll. [...] You will know
without fail that you are in the presence of a "concern" troll when
their concerns are expressed in the form of moron-level GOP talking
points.
---

"Concern troll" appeared in various online forums in '05 and '06 --
this one has it in the verbal phrase "doing a concern-troll":

---
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.radio.talk.dr-laura/msg/2917a23945680823
alt.radio.talk.dr-laura, July 14 2005
In short, from what I've seen at artd-l there's little original about
this "Rick" character; he's another RWer doing a concern-troll ("I
voted for Barak Obama! I'm a registered Dem! I'm *concerned* about the
direction of my beloved party!") schtik. Maybe at afr-l or aa this is
something unique but in the blogosphere such concern trolls are common
as dirt.
---

And Ana Marie Cox defined the term in Time Magazine on 12/16/06:

---
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570701,00.html
Concern troll: Noun, derived from "internet troll." A more subtle
beast than your standard troll, this species posts comments that
appear to be sympathetic to the topic being discussed but who, in
reality, wishes to sow doubt in the minds of readers. In a 2006 New
Hampshire Congressional campaign, a Republican staffer resigned after
reports that he had posted to liberal blogs claiming to be a Democrat
who thought the party should give up on the race.
---

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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