The Romantics are suing your good friends at Activision, Inc. over a song that appears in your favorite game ever, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the ’80s.

According to the lawsuit they are trying to sue the maker of “Guitar Hero,” saying the popular video game infringes on the band’s rights by featuring a soundalike recording of its 1980 hit “What I Like About You.”

So what are you going to do with all your makeup mirrors and make up if you can’t dress up and play like these guys now? haha

Anyways I just throw this out there because when GTA: SA got pulled for “Hot Coffee” you were able to make close to a 100% profit on the game on Ebay if you had the original version at the time. IF something similar to this happens to this game, I guess you can figure out why I mention the coincidence ;). Yup…Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the ’80s may just be worth a few extra bucks if this gets pulled.

Picked up a 7-day ban the other day on Gamefaqs.com I guess. Now I mainly use the site to look at video game walkthroughs and only use the boards when I may be stuck, but sometimes I just get a little silly. Like it says on my sidebar, the Current Events Board over there is one of my favorite online forums. In fact many of the weirdo things I post here, and observations I have dealing with the way people act online comes from there.

It is just one of those places where people like to go overboard. Mix of teens and mid-20s to 30s “adults” who just act like children trying to get away with as much as possible before they get warnings, or in my case suspended. High concentration of atheists too. Not normal realistic atheists, but those pissed off, “it’s simple logic” types, who scoff at the idea of authority, and are only there to try and argue with someone until the moderators get a hold of them.

Not really sure what I even did exactly. I get this message when I look at my user account:

3: Purgatory
Account suspended for a set period of time by an admin for numerous and/or severe TOS violations.

Severe TOS violations? LOL…no idea. Must have said something “politically incorrect”…several times. Must have gotten all my stereotypes in such a short time I couldn’t even get warned in time. I seem to have a problem with that. Good news is that I have one less distraction for a few days at least Gives me a chance to look at Studio RTA Furniture, or something while I think about what I did wrong :(.

Trolling is what happens when you go onto message boards, or any sort of forum where you can leave comments and just try to stir the pot. A troll is someone who has too much time on their hands and likes to screw with people. I have actually thought of getting business cards with my title being “Troll” before since it is so much fun.

There are several ways to be a good troll. You can take many different angles, but ultimately the most important aspect to it is that you can piss as many people off as possible to the point that they can’t even just ignore you anymore. No this isn’t just going somewhere and spamming with a bunch of topics, or just posting the same thing over and over again. That is a method, but a fairly weak one. That is more aptly referred to as bombing.

Trolling on the other hand is well played jabs at other posters. Ones that will get other posters to even jump in and gang up on you. Trolls are attention whores really. Only difference between talking about themselves like most beauty queens and post whores do is that they intentionally try to piss you off instead of just being too stupid to realize that no one cares what they have to say.

So…how exactly do you be a troll? Not everyone is cut out for it. Most can do what the little annoying spammer does with out a problem by bombing boards with the same crap over and over, but it takes a bit of a bullshitter to get some staying power. You do want to make people that don’t believe the Internet is Serious Business chuckle over your antics. You are there not only to annoy, but also entertain. You may also take the stance that will get others to mock you. This doesn’t piss anyone off usually, but you still waste a lot of their time with your stupidity.

If I were to go trolling on a random board somewhere I would have to give it a bit of a once over. Read a few topics and see what people there really care about. What kind of people are posting there, what their interests are, and pick a topic that will enrage them, but not necessarily get me banned right away. After all I want to come out with some sort of satisfaction by inciting as much hatred towards me as possible by the other community members. I don’t care if my stance is right or wrong. As long as it is different from everyone else there I can get them to jump on the drama train.

You can go after this a few ways. For the novice troll you can simply just take an opposing view to generally accepted ideals of society. You can act like a racist, talk about blowing up poor countries and taking their oil, or even just take a stance as a Bible Beater with no resources. These are all things that will get you mocked and hated by other users. It is up to you to make them keep mocking you with your stupidity. Those are simple solutions to your trolling. Just being an all out ignorant fool.

What takes a bit of skill is just to be able to go into any topic and change the conversation into something totally ridiculous. You pick out a post that to you is kind of silly. Maybe someone says:

“Today I was reading this book about blah blah blah, and I blah blah blah…”

You don’t care and neither does anyone else, although they will say they do. Say something little just to get everyone to start thinking you are a jerk like:

“Nobody cares.”

Now you are on your way. You have not only told the truth in most instances, but message board posters seem to have the uncanny ability to fly off the handle at any little comment that shouldn’t be there , or is sort of rude. It ruins the normalcy of the thread. A normal person wouldn’t be so rude so when someone sees a comment like that they too become a troll and start to talk shit to you. Keep it simple to start. You just want others to direct your trolling.

It’s like sales in a way. The best salesmen out there don’t talk all the time. They listen and utilize what someone else says to them to come up with an answer, or a pitch to their problem. It is exactly the same way with trolling. The other posters are who keep it rolling. You just have to incite it with a very little comment. Then the gloves are off and you have all the fuel you need to keep it rolling. One pissed off poster and this could turn into the worst thread that board has ever seen.

I really like to wake up the Internet Tough Guy on boards. If you can pull that guy out of the shadows you have made a serious impact. There is nothing better in trolling than to get someone so upset that they actually resort to telling you they will physically harm you.

Many people see trolling as a bad thing, but think about this. Community posters never unite more than when a troll is present. Those that take online forums far too seriously tend to get that feeling that they are better than you, and well they probably are since you are being an ass pretty much. You give these people a feeling of accomplishment. You are doing a great service to the group overall no matter what anyone says. They have a sense of belonging. Since you have such whacked out ideas that defy common sense people have to be right when they argue with you. They get out some frustrations when ultimately you get the banstick and earn their eBadges. You get to laugh like a little girl the whole time you troll. Win-win situation for everyone I must say.

The banstick is where it is at for Moderators. This is what I like to hear when a moderator is getting upset. “Don’t make me break out the banstick.” Any moderator that uses this term is typically rather comical. We enjoy to watch the carnage that is someone getting banned from a message board. Not only because they typically have lost their minds and are going to post the most ridiculous things they can think of, but also because the moderators get so bent out of shape. A good moderator will let it go for a while just to get a laugh themselves. This is the guy that will say “Banstick” just so they can keep the fun rolling and still appease the other heartless moderators who want to jump on the ban button like the site admin is going to give them a medal for their efforts.