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The Person Behind the Fake Customer Service Account
Bored Panda spoke to The Amazing Troll Man himself, and he was kind enough to give us his origin story. “A few years ago, I wrote a post on my social media account that went viral,” he explained, gazing moodily into the distance whilst puffing on his pipe. “It was a satire post about about an old schoolyard prank. Seeing so many people laugh at what I had written was a good feeling.”
“Then, a couple of years later, I bought a cucumber from a supermarket called Tesco here in the UK. On opening the cucumber I discovered a dead worm trapped inside the cellophane wrapper. I decided to write a jokey complaint to Tesco on Facebook.”
“At first I got the standard responses from their marketing team so I kept pushing them until a guy called Rob jumped in to have a bit of banter with me. The funny trolling quickly went viral. Every publication in the UK gave it a mention and it reached RTL TV in Germany. If you search William the Worm on Google you will see all the articles.”
“Once again it was a great feeling amusing so many people online. This was in 2016.”
Why Was the Fake Customer Service Account Created?
“Fast forward to 2018 I suffered with a mental breakdown. I was hit with anxiety and depression. I had never felt so low in my life. It took me nearly a year to pick myself up. Everyone was so surprised to see the joker of the pack fall to his knees.”
Troll-Man had reached his nadir and just knew he had to start doing things he was passionate about to get himself back on his feet... one of those things was making people laugh and creating some hilarious customer service interactions in the process.
“I decided to start a spoof customer support page. I knew that the format of banter between a big company and a customer worked from my past viral post. But I needed to be the customer support to ensure that banter could exist. So I set up the spoof profile for Internet trolling purposes.”
“Shortly after setting up my page I would get messages from people in America asking me to change their passwords etc. I assume in a frustrated state they would type customer support in the search bar and hey presto they’re through to me. One lady asked me to change her password on her casino account. You can see this post on my page, it’s pinned at the top. It’s how I got my logo and chose the name the Amazing Troll Man... the mask looks similar to spider man you see.”
Birth of a Customer Service Meme
“My trolls have gathered a lot of attention. They’ve been shared by celebs and big pages on Facebook, Twitter [now X] and Instagram.”
“One that really got noticed was when I took down a bigot on Marks and Spencer’s page.”
“From time to time, I get the odd ban and blocks, but it’s less than you’d think. I can’t help but think the companies quite like my work as it makes people laugh and doesn’t necessarily put their company policy in a bad light. I say the things they wish they could.”
Nailing a Fake Customer Service Meme
“I am selective on which complaints I choose to respond to. I never pick on the average person with a simple issue, I choose those that tend to be unnecessarily angry. My aim is to put them in their place a little while making others laugh. I also hope they’ll take a step back and look at the situation and realize that they don’t need to take life so seriously.”
It’s not all about justice for the unnecessarily angry, though. Troll-Man enjoys a wind-up as much as anyone. He also likes to diffuse the situation and turn angry customers into laughing ones. “Being a troll is all about getting people to react,” he told us. “In the past, trolls have tried to get the reaction to be that of anger.... that’s not me. The only reaction I want to bring out is laughter. If I can get people laughing, my job is done.”