The grim recent story of the "McCann troll" from the UK who had a high-profile exposure on TV illustrates this well: http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mcc... There's another recent exposure from the UK which I can't find a source for now but is another good example: one of the most active griefers on (iirc) Facebook, who when tracked down by a journalist turned out to be (again iirc) an unemployed middle-aged man, basically a career petty criminal. When he was asked whether he was worried by the possible jail sentence for his actions, he claimed to be pretty unconcerned: doing some time in prison was nothing new for him. In venues like FB or Twitter which have userbases which no longer lean youthful or nerdy, I assume that the malicious users no longer lean young or nerdy either. I do assume that the really dedicated online abusers tend to be either bitter and unhappy or happily soulless sociopaths, but those traits aren't exclusive to the young, male or geeky.