Language: español
Year of publication: in installments, between 2015 and 2017 in the digital magazine Pride and Satisfaction. As a book, 2018
Valuation: advisable
Now, when we think about this almost omnipresent figure of the digital troll, the image surely comes to mind of a guy in his underwear eating Doritos in front of the computer, while he pretends to be a sensual young girl to warm up the staff, throws From time to time you make philo-fascist proclamations or discuss any topic with the true experts on the subject without the slightest hesitation. True, that is the classic figure, the so-called “artisanal” troll, already almost endearing compared to the army of bots paid or rented in countries like India or Russia to be part of the digital armies that are on the warpath, like the hosts of Mordor when there are elections with a populist candidate in the running, natural disasters that can be used for someone’s political benefit or campaigns against immigrants, feminists, environmentalists or whoever it is that week… (enclosed under the useful adjective “do-gooders”).
Halfway between both modalities, the individual troll and these digital hordes, we find the company that the Pacheco sisters, Laura and Carmen, portray in Troll Corporation: a business intended to offer service to those who wish to annoy the competition, boycott a product, ruin the electoral campaign of a political rival, or simply fuck the bitch creating a bad environment on the networks out of personal interest or ideological conviction. After paying reasonable fees, the client is assured that his request will be in the hands of a group of select professionals and, above all, extremely competent in their work… Well, at least that is what the company sells, because in reality the employees of the Troll Co. are the most ordinary people, more or less well-intentioned, who have to deal not only with a precarious job towards which they have ethical reservations, but with the company’s bureaucracy, the brutality of their bosses and job insecurity. Typical characters that can be found in any office, such as the newbie, the intern or the veteran employee unable to adapt to the endless innovations that are implemented in the world of work… And, above all, the heartless and talkative head of the department, who has no qualms about saying things as they are and even less about executing them as ordered… quite a comical discovery by the authors of the book, it seems to me.
As is easy to guess, the humorous imprint of the book is not only due to the irony – or, directly, satire – on this whole wave of evil that harasses us from social networks and not to mention from the traditional press and politics (with variants depending on where we look, but with a common objective that would have pleased Mussolini and Goebbels, the inventors of all this); It is also based, to a large extent, on interpersonal relationships and, above all, on the dynamics between co-workers and between them and their bosses, a dynamic not always exempt (and, in fact, tending) to fall into the absurd. The Officeto understand us, the pinnacle series of television comedy and which, I have no doubt, served as inspiration for these vignettes…
The only drawback that can be said about this book is that it has aged somewhat, even though not even ten years have passed since its cartoons began to be published; In current times, said malismo (happy term coined by the cartoonist and humorist Mauro Entrialgo) is no longer hidden behind the anonymity of internet trolls, but, as I have already said, it has become mainstream and is exhibited without any ostentatiousness. In fact, it has become a sure formula for success in the press, literature (remember a certain distinguished Spanish writer and academic very given to gratuitous brawls), television and politics. Unapologetic trolling can make it easier for anyone to become president of the Community of Madrid, the Argentine Republic or, why not? the United States of America itself… the Sky is the limit. Faced with this global trend that does not seem to be going to subside soon, Troll Corporation It is presented to us, therefore, almost like a historical document, the testimony of a pre-pandemic era (although post-economic crisis) in which this type of behavior still had to be hidden so as not to arouse general rejection. Now, not even that. We are ready…
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2024/11/pacheco-pacheco-troll-corporation.html
