Pineapple is the perfect pizza topping. Milk goes before cereal. Taylor Swift is overrated and whiny. Gen Z is a lazy, spoiled generation.
All of the statements above are a simplistic example of rage bait, which according to Urban Dictionary, is “a post on social media designed expressly to outrage as many people as possible in order to generate interaction.”
As students spend hours on social media, many people see rage bait daily.
“[It’s] gotten [to be] a lot more of a common thing to see online, and it’s gotten more aggressive and more extreme,” said freshman Tollia Fa.
Social media influencers stand to gain more views, comments and shares when they create controversial content online.
“The way [influencers] make the most amount of money on the internet is [based on their videos] retention rate,” said senior Calvin Chao. “So if they have something that makes you stay [and] watch their video for longer, [they make more money].”
Others feel that there may be more sinister intentions behind some influencers’ creation of rage-bait content.
“Some people just do it for the fun of it … [or] just to get views,” said freshman Julian Rhodes. “But some people are trying to drive hate [toward certain groups].”
Rage-bait content and its quick, attention-grabbing statements can further draw students into online spaces.
“Sometimes I’ll get influenced by rage-bait, but I hate when I do [and] I’ll [try to] stray away from it,” Rhodes said. “[When] I see rage-bait I start digging a rabbit hole, I’m [just] feeding into it and giving them views.”
Rage bait can warp students’ relationships with these platforms in general.
“[Social media is] not this personal thing anymore,” Chao said. “[People are] using the site to spread their own malice and it’s wild. I haven’t [left] a comment on social media posts in a long time … because there’s a lot of toxicity.”
Despite the negative associations many have with rage bait, there may still be some interesting upsides to the otherwise simplistic content.
“I actually appreciate the discussion that can [be brought up] because everybody has different perspectives, and rage bait [can be] how people end up voicing them,” said senior Cassandra McMillan. “A lot of times, [there’ll be] one person who’s just lying about what they believe in, but then everybody else will come in and fight truly for what they believe.”
Other students still worry about how rage bait content can spread misinformation when viewers take this content at face value.
“[People will often] see something and instantly believe it without checking for credible sources,” Rhodes said. “If misinformation gets passed around a lot, nobody [decides] to look more into it.”
Students feel the need to be cautious when interacting with rage bait content, especially knowing how it could influence their real-life behaviors.
“[Watching rage bait] doesn’t have super obvious effects immediately,” McMillan said. “It won’t really change your actions, but it will start subtly influencing what you believe and how you start interacting with people. Every statement that [others] say is all of a sudden [something] you have to dissect and you have to decide if this [is] something [you] can argue against. Having that argumentative point of view isn’t necessary in real life.”
But as rage bait continues to invade social media, avoiding it is a task much easier said than done.
“You can [avoid rage bait, but] the problem is that you have to actively choose what you get on your feed, which is hard to do,” McMillan said. “[Platforms are] giving you something that they know you’ll interact with … You have to purposely go block it … And eventually the algorithm will recognize how it’s [not] holding your attention.”
Rage bait online may be easier for students to avoid if they make use of social media’s built-in features for tailoring what content they want to see.
“I’m very glad that social media has these ‘do not recommend’ buttons now,” Chao said. “You have the option to step away. That’s something you can’t do in real life.”
Others have a more positive view of how rage bait and the heated arguments that follow it can be avoided in general.
“[Rage bait] can be avoided if … [instead of] slashing other people for their opinions, you [acknowledge that you] have your own opinion, they have theirs, [and] agree to disagree,” Fa said.
With social media becoming a prevalent part of everyday life, rage bait, ranging from deceptive content to provoking experiences, has become a common occurrence hard to avoid.
