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Influencers once wanted to be loved. Now, they want to be hated. Kate Demolder writes.
A new wave of social media users has emerged who specialise in making content you hate.
On the surface, they appear normal – they use high-quality camera equipment, break the fourth wall, tend towards the menial tasks we've come to associate with influencer culture – but a crucial difference between them and the likes of comedic influencers, lifestyle influencers, beauty influencers or any other kind, is that they’re looking for you to hate them, not love them.
They do this in a number of ways – spreading misinformation, typos, destroying coveted items, playing dumb, filming abrasive footage or making sweeping statements – but creating enraging content is neither formulaic nor a one-size-fits-all.
Any number of inane acts can infuriate the right viewer. While typically, the more garish or provocative an act the more outrage it will fuel –– just like how the destruction of an iPhone might produce more fury than the destruction of a marshmallow –– the most rage-filled posts I’ve come across have been varied in their approach.
Among them, a woman claiming to heal her breast cancer with holistic ingredients in lieu of modern medicine, an influencer purposefully using a product incorrectly while proclaiming "it doesn’t work," and someone biting into a four-pronged KitKat bar without first separating it into individual pieces.
At its core, rage-baiting is a manipulative, emotional tactic used by content creators to elicit outrage. The premise is simple: if you're angry, you're more likely to comment, share and ultimately increase online engagement, helping creators drive more traffic to their channels and earn revenue.
Take Louise Melcher, for example, a skilled comedian whose TikTok content has seen her become a global leader in rage baiting. "GRWM to go on a date WHILE in a monogamous relationship," one video of hers reads, "7 hours into a 10-hour road trip. At what point do I break the news that I didn't get into the college we’re driving to," captions another.
Melcher, who boasts 709.5K TikTok followers at the time of writing – not to mention, a bio that reads 'Honesty Integrity Truth,’ – regularly surpasses 10M views on her posts, which share provocative captions, paired with a front-facing monologue, in order to bait viewers.
(A rumour has swirled since TikTok’s inception that its algorithm prefers direct face-to-camera, meaning that the likelihood of Melcher’s content reaching your For You page is higher than most.)
Her agency insists rage-baiting was never the plan. "To me, she’s the most believable comedic storyteller on the internet," says Chris J, Head of Media Partnerships & Agency at The Gold Studios, where Melcher is a client.
Joining Melcher is Winta Zesu, a creator who according to a recent BBC interview made $150,000 (€143,159.14) from posting rage bait on social media last year.
In her videos, Zesu documents her life as a New York City model, who is regularly forlorn because she is "too pretty". What commentators don't realise, though, is that Winta is playing a character. "U are mid, no wonder u having a challenge getting attention," one commenter wrote under a video of Zesu saying photographers ignored her because she is too pretty. "Shup (sic) the f up," another wrote. "Please go get a life. Hate from Portugal and the [world emoji]."
To link modern, new-age terms, rage-baiting is oft-considered the technological equivalent of gaslighting, a psychological tactic which involves shifting one's perception of reality to manipulate emotions.
The more provocative creators will create rage-bait content centred around race, gender and sexuality, outlining either contradicting, misleading or inflammatory statements intent on triggering indignation. From personal experience, I have found myself watching rage-bait content like this multiple times over to determine whether the content itself is intentionally misleading or whether I’m reading it wrong.
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The dawn of ragebait signifies a new era in how we approach social media. No longer seen as an inoffensive platform based around the central tenets of connection, new-age social media is more of a repetitive obstacle course, one focused on behavioural addiction and the erosion of critical thought.
It has, in that way, pivoted from left-leaning principles to right, socialist to capitalist, in a way that has proved remarkably lucrative for all involved. TikTok Shop directs our engagement to the till, while the common parlance of 'link in bio,' allows creators to capitalise on what was once a way to keep in contact with your graduating class.
"The way these platforms work at the minute is that they're encouraging people to monetise content," Dr Roderic Flynn, Associate Professor and Chair of Communications Studies at Dublin City University, says. "If you can get people to rise to something, that’s considered a higher level of engagement, and then you’re actually due to be paid more by the platform. So there’s literally more money to be earned in outrage compared with being nice."
Trolling - be certain, rage-baiting is trolling - has been around for as long as the internet itself. In the early days of web culture, this happened via YouTube titles, clickbait, edgier memes posted to Facebook and nihilistic Twitter threads.
It exists online, much like sensational comments in real life, solely to receive engagement. In a saturated market of thriving social accounts for public good, trolling sticks out clearly. And it does it well. In a 2013 study conducted at Beihang University, Beijing, research showed that users on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform, were more likely to share content that elicited disgust and righteous indignation than those that sparked feelings of joy or sadness.
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To a social media platform, a structure wholly built on engagement, this is a goldmine –– one worth structuring oneself around.
"Social media has promoted a model of quick response that triggers anger," Dr Paloma Viejo Otero, a researcher with an interest in developing a critical understanding of Platform Governance, says. "Does it profit off us being angry? My tendency is to say yes. Combine it with the fact that the world is very angry at the minute, and you do the math.
"Content creators have professionalised content that makes people angry because the model itself is reactive. Combine that with the speed of conversation today and you can see how social media is fuelling that anger. The €1 million question, though, is that the model or the consequence of the model? That, right now, I don't know."
Although social media is built around a series of mechanisms that are all engagement-centric, the consequences of such narratives can be far-reaching. Rage-baiting can influence policy, societal norms, world orders and personal feelings when it comes to individuals or sub-groups.
Moreover, when these sentiments become politicised, they can lead to a division that creates culture wars, something political parties use to push agendas of their own. "They know how to feed those narratives," said University of Alberta political scientist Jared Wesley of right-wing politicians to The Tyee in 2022. "It is little half-truths, sometimes more blatant lies, that kind of plant the seeds for this rage farming."
Despite years of criticism and promises to address misinformation, disinformation and divisive content, social media platforms like Facebook, X and TikTok have failed to protect the legitimacy of information and truth. According to the London School of Economics, algorithms prioritise engagement over accuracy or integrity, allowing bait of all kinds to thrive unchecked.
This not only eats away at information legitimacy but also fosters an environment of distrust and division, not to mention a defined route for illegitimate policies to thrive.
Lest we forget, rage is a political emotion. When George Floyd was murdered by a white policeman in May 2020, rage was the reason for the international uprisings in twenty-first-century cities that directed attention towards structural violence and racialised hate.
Rage also fuelled the #MeToo movement, suffragism, equality and just about any great movement since the dawn of time. It, as a stirring emotion, is central to culture wars –– voting, the transgender debate, abortion, immigrants, vaccines, tax exemption, critical race theory, political theory, equality, feminism, misogyny, same-sex marriage and surrogacy –– and determines who is voted into power and who isn't.
Moral outrage is a powerful emotion with notable consequences for society. It creates laws, promotes unity and catalyses collective action. At the same time, it boasts direct blame for a host of social ills, including the rise of political polarisation and the erosion of democracy.
Some studies insist that social media incentivises users to express more moral outrage over time, with algorithms set to prioritise content that elicits and evokes outrage to maximise engagement.
This engagement then swings elections, calls time on government officials, makes and breaks careers and redefines what it means to be in the public eye. It also asks different questions of its users, namely: What is it to be a social media user today? as well as Can you spot a real post from a fake?
In many ways, the popularity of rage bait, or indeed any kind of baited content, highlights our contemporary online environment. In an era where the pursuit of profit often drives content creation, there is usually an element of content strategy behind everything.
Even the creators who strive for authenticity do so hoping to turn cash. Much like its contextual counterparts online, the success of rage bait relies solely on the level of engagement it receives. If people do not interact with this type of content, it will no longer be an effective strategy, and creators will be less inclined to produce it.
The only way to ensure its demise is to avoid taking the bait.
If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
