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Also known as: trolling, trolled
A post written to provoke angry replies rather than to state a genuine position, named after the fishing technique of trailing bait. Recognizing one and declining to answer was called not feeding the troll; announcing the recognition afterwards often used YHBT. The term came into wide use on Usenet in the early 1990s and has since spread to every online discussion medium.
Browse all terms in Culture & History, or see the full Usenet glossary.