Japanese for Gamers 101: T is for Troll

Inflammatory language. Off topic posts. Atrocious spelling. Ah, the joys of troll-hood! While today’s word is not strictly gaming related, the perennial forum troll is something that most gaming communities around the world find themselves hosting at one point or other. Japan is no exception.

Word: 荒らし
Romanization/phonetic: arashi/ ah-rah-shee
Etymology: Derived from the verb “arasu” –to vandalize, ransack, or plunder.
Definition: A forum/chat-room/etc. troll.
Origin: Possibly notices posted in buildings asking people to “keep an eye out for building vandals” (ビル荒らしに注意).

Ja.Wikipedia defines arashi as someone who continually posts inappropriate messages or performs other disruptive acts on participatory network resources such as chat rooms, bulletin boards, blogs etc. It also refers generically to acts of trolling. Wikipedia cites the arashi’s objectives as “destroying or impeding discussions within the community, or the community itself.” It goes on to say that most arashi are “territorial control freaks”.

Arashi behavior in Japan ranges from continually spamming a forum with meaningless threads (so that their threads will always appear at the top of the thread list), to more destructive behavior such as posting spyware-infected files. Arashi may also engage in griefing, such as posting personal information about other users.