Everyone has scrolled their social media feed and seen a video so infuriating that it leads them to questioning the creator’s thinking. It could be a creator “cooking” by wasting a bunch of food, purposely butchering a word by either spelling or pronouncing it wrong or just a person doing something incredibly racist like uttering a racial slur/phrase.

These are classic examples of rage bait—content that is geared to evoke an emotional reaction from its audience, particularly an angry one. The content upsets people so much that they comment out their frustration under the creator’s post, and these comments generate revenue that goes straight into the creator’s pockets. To these creators, all attention is good attention, no matter what. Even though everyone seems to hate the videos they put out, the public’s opinion is irrelevant to the creator, as they’re earning money anyway.

High amounts of likes and comments signal high audience activity. Even if the comment section is filled with people leaving paragraphs on how much they hate said video, social media algorithms favor high engagement, where likes, shares, views and comments help push a video out towards more accounts.

Accounts like “Jane Brain” on Instagram are a prime example of rage bait. Like a lot of other rage bait content creators (specifically having to do with food), Brain displays eccentric food recipes across social media to infuriate people. In one of her videos, she poured

Pringles into a pot of boiling water, drained the water out of the mixture and threw in butter and cheese, calling it “mashed potatoes.” 

Many creators resort to rage baiting to garner attention, given that controversy often trends more than genuine content.

Anger clouds the more rational part of the brain, making someone act before they can really rationalize their actions. Often, overwhelming emotions cause fingertips to make contact with the comment icon instead of just scrolling to the next video, and that is exactly what makes rage bait so profitable. 

It is important to know when content is only just rage bait and when to not pay it much attention. The first sign is seeing phrases such as “Unpopular opinion… but,” “Hot-take,” “Is it just me or…,” “Change my mind” and so many more that manage to prompt outrage.

The best plan of action when dealing with rage bait is to just keep scrolling and not let people profit off of simply upsetting others. 

Obviously, rage bait creators do not even do what they posted because if they did, why would it be that important to record a video on it and get all the right angles? Simply to enrage audiences and profit off of their anger. 

While the content these creators create are appalling, there is no one else to blame but audiences for fueling rage bait content in social media algorithms even more by wasting energy by interacting with the video. Anyone who uses this type of content cheaply herds attention and profits lazily through social media. Without baiting viewers’ rage, their videos would otherwise not reach the same attention— however, when is the world going to stop propping this kind of content up?

It costs absolutely nothing to move onto the next video and let that rage bait fall off to irrelevancy. No one can even get that mad at the content creators for their high earnings because some people can not go without making their angry comments known under a video.

Are these videos morally right? No. But are they money making? Unfortunately, yes.

If no one wants these people to make any more money, just keep scrolling and do not let them profit off of frustration. Complaining about rage baiting while also contributing to the way content trends is counterintuitive.