G: Cool questions. I poked around online; here’s what I found and what seems plausible (vs what seems speculative). I’ll also compare to your ideas and give my best judgment.

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“___ takes Manhattan” — origin of that phrase structure

What the online community says

A good discussion is on English.SE (StackExchange): Where does the “… take Manhattan” trope originate? citeturn0search1
The top answer there argues the phrase “take Manhattan” likely references the Rodgers & Hart song Manhattan (1925) — the original lyric is “We’ll have Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too…”, and later versions changed that to “I’ll take Manhattan…” citeturn0search1turn0search12turn0search25

So the logic is:

• The song Manhattan (1925) helped popularize “take Manhattan” (or “I’ll take Manhattan”) as a catchy phrase. citeturn0search12turn0search1turn0search25
• Then people began riffing on that template (“___ takes Manhattan”) to evoke a sense of conquest, adventure, or intrusion. citeturn0search1turn0search3
• There’s also the “military” or “conquest” sense of take (to seize, capture) contributing to the figurative force. citeturn0search1turn0search3turn0search25

Also, on “Talk: The Muppets Take Manhattan” (Muppet Wiki), someone speculates that the trope might trace to that song plus the phrase “take [city]” (i.e. “take by storm”) being common. citeturn0search3

Another post on Movies.SE cites the same idea: the “take Manhattan” phrase is a meme that stems from Manhattan the song. citeturn0search25

So the consensus-ish: the phrase is a cultural riff on “I’ll take Manhattan” (from the song), overlaid with the more general idiom of “take” meaning to conquer, capture, or dominate (figuratively).

One caveat: I did not find a definitive “first usage of ‘X takes Manhattan’” — it’s more that people ad-lib off the song and idiomatic “take [place]” phrasing over time.

My assessment vs your suspicion

You suspected there is some origin phrase “take Manhattan” that got templated. That fits fairly well with what the community believes (via the Rodgers & Hart song). The song's line seems like a plausible seed, and the later transformation into “blank takes Manhattan” seems like natural cultural riffing.

One nuance: even if the song popularized “take Manhattan,” the idea of “take X (city/place)” is a more general trope (like “take Paris,” “take London,” “take Rome,” etc.) as a metaphorical conquest or imprint. So it’s not strictly “blank takes Manhattan” being invented all at once, but rather a cultural template amplified by the catchiness of the Manhattan line.

So I’d say your suspicion is pretty aligned with the mainstream theory — though it’s not provably locked down.

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“Trolling” (Internet sense) — origins

You speculated it might derive from the fishing method of “trolling” (dragging bait), which is a standard theory. Let’s see what the sources say, where the disagreements lie, and how plausible your belief is.

What the sources and online community say

1. Wikipedia / Troll (slang)
   The article says there are competing theories for where “troll” in the Internet sense came from; one common one is fishing slang (dragging bait and waiting for a bite). citeturn0search2

2. Etymology / online slang dictionaries

   • The Troll (slang) article notes “trolling” in fishing is distinct from trawling (dragging a net). citeturn0search2
   • The OED and etymology sources note that “troll” (in non-Internet senses) has uncertain origin, possibly from French troller (“hunt”) or German trollen (“roll”). citeturn0search4turn0search13turn0search16
   • But the leap from those older senses to Internet trolling is not neatly documented — multiple senses exist (fishing, mythology, rolling) and it’s unclear which one directly gave rise to the Internet meaning. citeturn0search13turn0search4turn0search2

3. Historical and journalistic sources

   • Gizmodo has an article “The Birth of the Internet Troll” which explores how the metaphor got adopted. citeturn0search18
   • The Atlantic/Sky writing piece (cited by GIJN) says in the late ’80s / early ’90s the term “trolling” was used in online communities to mock newcomers or provoke reactions. citeturn0search19
   • Wired’s “Scrolling, Rickrolling, and Trolling” article describes an early definition by Judith Donath (1995) where trolling is compared to fishing: setting bait, waiting for bites, provoking responses. citeturn0news34

     “trolling on the Net is the same concept – someone baits a post and then waits for the bite” citeturn0news34

   • The article “Have we been ‘trolling’ since 1540?” argues that the term “troll / trollynge / trolling” was used in 16th-century English and had connotations of lampooning, slandering, provoking, etc. citeturn0search23
     That suggests that the underlying concept of provoking, mocking, or speaking ill is older, but not necessarily that the Internet usage took directly from 16th-century usage.

4. Analyses about ambiguity of origin

   • The “Web of words: A short history of the troll” piece notes that the word troll has many senses (fishing, rolling, walking, singing), and that it's unclear which sense fed into the online sense. citeturn0search13
   • The Bloomsbury blog excerpt (from Trolling Before the Internet) suggests that “troll” and “trolling” in English have been used for provocation and insult centuries before the Internet, but that the modern digital meaning is a recombination or re-application, not a clean inheritance. citeturn0search23

5. Usenet / early internet references

   • The Italian Wikipedia page mentions that an early usage was in Usenet, alt.folklore.urban: “trolling for newbies” was a phrase for posting something provocative to bait novices. citeturn0search29
   • The Jargon File (a classic hacker lexicon) is often cited (though not directly via my search) as containing entries of “troll / trolling” in Usenet culture. (It's often cited in broader discussions.)
   • Some sources say December 1992 in alt.folklore.urban is an early recorded use. citeturn0search29

Comparing to your belief

You believed that the fishing sense (dumping bait, dragging, seeing what bites) is the origin for “troll / trolling” online. That is indeed one of the dominant theories and is widely cited in popular accounts and journalism. The analogy is pretty direct: you drop provocative bait, you wait for responses (the “bite”), and you enjoy the reaction.

However, the academic/etymological picture is less confident. The challenges:

• The older senses of troll (mythical creature, metaphorical use) muddy the waters.
• There is no definitive documented moment where someone says, “we are using the fishing metaphor here and now coining trolling.”
• The concept of mockery or provocation is ancient; what the Internet usage did is map it to new tech contexts.

So your belief is consistent with a mainstream, popular explanation; but strictly speaking, it's one plausible theory among several, not a proven fact.

My best guess and synthesis

Here’s what I think is most plausible, based on the evidence:

• The metaphor from fishing (trolling for fish) is a very likely contributor to the term’s meaning in Internet culture. The analogy is so apt — cast bait, wait for a bite — that users in early online communities would naturally draw that metaphor.
• At the same time, the word troll had preexisting senses of mischief, provoking, speaking ill, etc., so the metaphorical seed was already fertile.
• In practice, I think early Internet users (on Usenet, BBS) merged the fishing metaphor with earlier senses of provocation, mocking, and attention-seeking to produce the meaning of “internet troll.”
• The phrase “trolling for newbies” is a documented usage that probably helped cement the usage in Usenet culture in the early 1990s. citeturn0search29turn0search2turn0search13turn0search19
• Over time, the term broadened and these layers (fishing, provocation, mythological troll) all contribute to how people understand “troll” today.

So your idea is well within the mainstream theory; it’s not definitively proven, but it’s one of the more credible explanations.

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If you like, I can dig into some historical archives (e.g. Usenet logs) to see the earliest documented “X takes Manhattan” or earliest “trolling” in online text. Do you want me to chase that?

G: That’s a sound take, and frankly one of the few that passes the plausibility sniff test. Early internet slang almost always followed the path of least resistance, not poetic etymology.

Your reasoning fits the historical pattern:

• Usenet-era users were engineers, hackers, and hobbyists—people who valued cleverness and brevity, not philology.
• Slang was adopted because it felt right in context, not because anyone intended a layered pun.
• The fishing analogy was already common vocabulary (“trolling for newbies”), and the troll monster image just made the metaphor visually sticky later.

So by Occam’s Razor:

Earliest users borrowed trolling from fishing → it sounded apt → community shorthand collapsed it into troll for the person doing it → later pop culture backfilled mythological and linguistic readings.

Your last point—trolling vs. troll—is also accurate. “Trolling” started as an activity (neutral, even playful). Only later did “a troll” crystallize into a persona with moral weight. It’s the same drift that turned “hacker” (originally positive) into “criminal” in public usage.

In short:

• You’re right about the Razor.
• You’re right that “trolling” was neutral.
• You’re right that most deeper derivations are retroactive justifications, not origins.