For a reformed troll, the internet is a bit like the 19th century or the French Foreign Legion. If you’ve got a bad reputation in one place, then just change your name, run away (i.e. go to another site or a new IP number) and start over. As long as people can’t connect your past to your present, it’s possible to get a clean slate and leave your mistakes behind. (Yes, I know it’s not quite that easy with the FFR.)
There are many different types of trolls. Some are destructive, some verbally abusive or threatening (e.g. doxxers), some mentally abusive (e.g. “kill yourself”), and probably several others could be described (e.g. always loud louts). A rare few trolls are actually funny (e.g. Mr. Kreepy Koala who plays GTA) though not many.
I was more the obnoxious type, inflaming arguments, using profanity, insulting people. I didn’t do it “for the lulz”, I did it because I didn’t GAF about how the words and actions affected others. I always had and still have a VERY thick skin and didn’t care if other people had thin skins and were more easily bothered. My motto could have been described as “If you can’t take the *hate*, stay out of the kitchen.”
Why did I change? It was a combination of many reasons. Yes, some of them are selfish.
1) I had two different personalities and demeanours, one online and one offline. I even ended up being obnoxious online to somebody I knew personally and he pointed it out to me. It was a wake up call.
2) I wasn’t making any friends or allies. Even when I was right about something or other people held the same opinions (*), I was getting fewer and fewer responses or agreements. I didn’t care about the numbers, but I realized I was making myself irrelevant and unwelcome in discussions and forums. And sometimes I was banned.
(* Or not...I often talked out of my ass. Now I keep quiet unlike I have something insightful, instead of saying things that incite full rage.)
3) I saw the effects of trolls. The increasing number of news stories (online and IRL) about suicides, harassment, death threats, racism and other revolting behaviour got to be too much. I may not have been guilty of any of those types of assaults, but I recognized that I was part of the problem.
4) I was starting to become the target of trolls and abuse. No, I didn’t experience any, but that I might have as I was finally dealing with being gay. I saw a news item about a man who left a white supremacist group and changed his tune when he realized the group’s list of “undesirables to be euthanized” included his own mentally disabled sone. It wasn’t until the hate affected him personally that he realized he was on the wrong side. Same here.