Maybe "piss people off" is a bit strong, but it really seems like he is trying first and foremost to "get a rise out of people".
I don't think he simultaneously thinks that white people with beards are trying to "emphasis their whiteness" and a thinks that white people with beards are trying to appropriate/mock Muslim culture. Those two assertions, while fine (if not a little loony) on their own, are contradictory and expressing both of them tips his hand. He doesn't believe either; he is being intentionally inflammatory.
Had I not read both of those comments, I would have been strongly annoyed (indeed, I necessarily read one before the other, and was strongly annoyed until I read the other). Having read both comments, I can only be bemused. I'm onto his game now, so I'm not going to let him get to me.
This is my understanding of what the word "troll" traditionally meant. People on IRC who get people upset by making absurd flamebait statements and pretending to defend them ("Lunix is for communists and virgins", being a prototypical troll in my book).
I don't think he simultaneously thinks that white people with beards are trying to "emphasis their whiteness" and a thinks that white people with beards are trying to appropriate/mock Muslim culture. Those two assertions, while fine (if not a little loony) on their own, are contradictory and expressing both of them tips his hand. He doesn't believe either; he is being intentionally inflammatory.
Had I not read both of those comments, I would have been strongly annoyed (indeed, I necessarily read one before the other, and was strongly annoyed until I read the other). Having read both comments, I can only be bemused. I'm onto his game now, so I'm not going to let him get to me.
This is my understanding of what the word "troll" traditionally meant. People on IRC who get people upset by making absurd flamebait statements and pretending to defend them ("Lunix is for communists and virgins", being a prototypical troll in my book).