Jabarkan Trolling pada 1990-an dari Troll internet

Referensi awal tentang trolling di Google Usenet archive adalah oleh Mark Miller kepada user lain yang bernama Tad, (1990, February 8) :

"You are so far beyond being able to understand anything anyone here says that this is just converging on uselessness. The really sad part is that you really believe that you're winning. You are a shocking waste of natural resources - kindly re-integrate yourself into the food-chain...you mindless flatulent troll."

Pada awal 1990-an, frasa "trolling for newbies" menjadi populer di grup Usenet alt.folklore.urban, dimana penggunaannya sedikit berbeda dengan penggunaan istilah tersebut saat ini; saat itu, istilah ini digunakan sebagai 'inside-joke', biasanya berisi pertanyaan-pertanyaan atau subjek yang sudah sangat usang sehingga cuma user baru yang menanggapinya secara jujur. Ada lagi yang mengembangkan istilah tersebut untuk mengacu kepada praktik memainkan peran sebagai orang yang sangat kurang informasi atau salah arah, bahkan dalam newsgroup dimana orang tersebut bukan merupakan pengikut aktif, namun sering ditekankan bahwa hal ini hanya mengacu pada usaha-usaha yang dilakukan untuk mencapai tujuan tertentu, bukan hanya provokasi sederhana biasa. Dalam konteks ini, istilah troll biasanya mengacu pada aksinya, bukan pelakunya.

Dalam literatur yang lebih serius, praktik trolling pertama kali didokumentasikan oleh Judith Donath (1999), yang menggunakan beberapa contoh anekdot dari berbagai newsgroup Usenet dalam diskusinya. Paper Donath memaparkan keambiguan identitas dalam "virtual community"  :

"In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity. The norm is: one body, one identity. ... The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter."

Donath memberikan ringkasan tentang pengalihan identitas:

"Trolling is a game about identity deception, albeit one that is played without the consent of most of the players. The troll attempts to pass as a legitimate participant, sharing the group's common interests and concerns; the newsgroups members, if they are cognizant of trolls and other identity deceptions, attempt to both distinguish real from trolling postings and, upon judging a poster a troll, make the offending poster leave the group. Their success at the former depends on how well they—and the troll—understand identity cues; their success at the latter depends on whether the troll's enjoyment is sufficiently diminished or outweighed by the costs imposed by the group.

"Trolls can be costly in several ways. A troll can disrupt the discussion on a newsgroup, disseminate bad advice, and damage the feeling of trust in the newsgroup community. Furthermore, in a group that has become sensitized to trolling—where the rate of deception is high—many honestly naïve questions may be quickly rejected as trollings. This can be quite off-putting to the new user who upon venturing a first posting is immediately bombarded with angry accusations. Even if the accusation is unfounded, being branded a troll is quite damaging to one's online reputation." (Donath, 1999, p. 45)