Troll rough draft

First off, moderators, if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it to the appropriate area. However, all I ask is that you please don't lock this. This took a quite the time to think of and write, and I'd love to see whoever reads this and their feedback, positive or negative. Thank you.

I'm sure a few people, maybe more remember who I am. Once talented Rock Band player, who with inevitable notice took a turn for the worse with my attitude towards the community I was once part of. By that I mean I would waste countless hours doing what I could to displease the, as I once referred to, "fruits" of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band (mostly Rock Band) community just for my own pleasure and fun. Why did I do this? That's what I'm here to talk about, and why it wasn't worth a single second of my time, and why it shouldn't, and will not be, for anyone else.

The first sign of this was when I stopped playing Guitar Hero/Rock Band, and pretty much video games altogether. Of course, like several of the people on this site, I eventually got bored of competitive play and pretty much the game overall. I started to focus more on real life, but at the same time, stayed with the still competitive community online. At this point, seeing people still playing the game competitively was a joke to me, and I felt the need to make fun of and laugh at them for it. This was around the spring of 2009 and lasted until the end of the year, if I remember correctly. I'd be on IRC and in certain streams or chats just making fun of people, along with others. I'd even be on here or on AIM doing the same thing, as you can see from my perma rocker status, which I got intentionally. At the time, I thought that was hilarious and that I was the better person for doing it. Almost a year later, I brought this up in my mind despite me not having any interaction or single thought of the community while focusing on my real life, only to realize now that it was a bad mistake on my part.

Why did I do this? Why does anyone do this? By "this," the best I could say about it is to "troll." Why do we troll for our own pleasure? I've always been against sadism, and I realized then that I was a huge hypocrite for doing such a thing. These people do have lives as well, so what if they play a video game competitively? Maybe they like to be competitive, or just have a lot of fun doing so. Making fun of them does not make me the bigger man or make me have more of a life doing so. But I thought the opposite whilst doing so, and it was a very stupid move on my part.

I had a lot of friends from this community, and while I did not know them in real life, they were still very cool people to talk to and play video games with. Because of my actions, it cost the friendship of these people on here, and even though it's best not to go online to talk to people you don't know in real life, these people would still be considered my friends. I had panic attacks and a depressive personality back then and I would talk to these people, and they would talk to me and help me. That is what a real friend is for. To those that I actually offended and ruined friendships with, I am truly sorry for what I did, it was a stupid and wrong mistake on my part and I assure that it won't happen again.

This realization, in my opinion, comes from maturity. Once you grow older, at some point you'll start to realize how people feel if you put yourselves in their shoes. My word of advice to anyone that actually reads this: Don't waste your time trolling or trying to make someone's life miserable, both online and especially in real life. If you have a close friendship with someone, whether it be online or in real life, don't ruin it because of peer pressure or any other reason.

It's been several months since I've been on this forum board, and even longer since I've touched my Xbox 360 console. With all this being said, I'll be on here from time to time again, but more than likely not on Xbox Live because I've been very busy since my first year of college started and will continue to be busy.

I hope everyone who clicked on this topic read this all the way through and understands what mistakes I made, how I learned from them, and why you shouldn't do the same thing as me. Thank you for your time, and please comment if you have something to say.

- Dan, GarageMetal468