1) Hypnosis is an internal process, so the suggestions to focus on relaxing cause the subject to internalize what they're experiencing over whatever external shit is going on (the room they're in, what they're laying or sitting on, sounds around them, etc). Relaxation is not a requirement for entering a trance of trance, of course not. The simplest example of a trance can be something like this:
Ever been reading a book, or anything really, and get so focused on what you're reading that you don't happen to notice a phone ringing nearby, or someone calling your name to the point where they practically have to scream at you or make contact with you to get you to respond to them?
If so, that's a trance - it's just a conscious state of hyper-focused attention on a single thing to the exclusion of all external stimuli, as Erickson used to describe it.
2) "couldn't go under the way I wanted" - listen, you have no real experience with purposely learning how to go into trance, so making a statement like that tells us you're going on preconceptions of what YOU think trance should be, and that's setting yourself up for failure. Trance is unique for every person, what you experience is not what others experience so no matter what you read or watch or listen to, at this point your lack of experience should be tempered by the fact that you simply don't have a clue about it yet. Learning how to allow yourself to go into trance is the key here, and it's a process where you learn things just like anything else.
3) Trance happens, it isn't forced, and when it does happen you're rarely consciously aware that it has actually happened because it's an unconscious process and you will not consciously be aware of it when it does. Yes, that doesn't make sense to the conscious mind that'll be reading it but that's fine, your unconscious mind is OK with that and understands it. Pretending is fine, just don't get pissed at yourself when - again - things don't come out like your preconceptions are locked into.
4) Yep, you do, on both counts.
As for the people online, most are nice, but yes there's assholes and bitches like anywhere else, learn to see through the BS they shove out - most people have no power in their lives, none at all. They have no control of what they do daily, no control in their jobs, their relationships, nothing, no authority over anyone at all. So when they get in front of a computer or phone and realize "Hey, this Internet thing, nobody knows I'm a dog, therefore I can be that asshole I've always wanted to be…" and there it happens.
Hypnosis and trance are perfectly normal things for us Humans, we enter and leave states of trance dozens upon dozens of times a day and again, when it happens we don't consciously take note of it because it's not a conscious process, it's unconscious when it happens.
Any moments that you can't account for in your daily life, glancing out a window, staring at something and not really seeing it, lapses in time, etc, all examples of momentary trances when the conscious mind says "Fuck it…" and the unconscious comes out to play.