The best way to get attention online is still to rage bait, and we are seeing this at an industrial scale now.
Notes:
- Like me, you may have seen a video of the morning routine of a muscular man this week.
- That video is EVERYWHERE right now on social media right now.
- The online hive mind has been reacting to it all week, posting reactions that are annoyed with it, or simply mocking it.
- This is great news for the man who posted this online, as of writing this the YouTube Short has received 41 million views in 1 month: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l8N99V0BWfk
- As far as the YouTube algorithm is concerned, there is no bad engagement, there is simply engagement.
- A dislike is as good as a like.
- Ashton has 2.9 million subscribers on YouTube, and 4.7 million subscribers on TikTok.
- Frankly speaking, he is having the last laugh.
- I have no idea how much money can be made from such videos, but my guess would be it could be significant?
- This is a very mild example of course, in reality there are much worse examples of rage bait online, mainly politic content.
- Many people have had their brains fried online by politics.
- It is a slippery slope from disliking content online, to joining political protests in real life and damaging private property, or worse, resulting in life-changing prosecutions.
- Rage bait leads to negative engagement, leading to cancellation attempts, leading to street level actions, leading to prosecutions...it's nuts!
- In this circle of despair, the average internet user responding to this rage bait is nothing more than fresh meat for the sausage maker.
- The winners are the marketing people smart enough to game the algorithms, and the owners of the social media platforms that run those algorithms.
- The House always wins.
- Once again, I find myself lamenting the failure of the "information superhighway" vision for the early Internet, instead people go online to get confused and angry.
- The long-term impacts on society are becoming obvious, and it's not good.
- In my next episode, I will share my morning routine: please like and subscribe to ensure you don't miss that!
- It will make you popular and rich!
Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/685-The-rage-bait-economy-is-going-strong-(TLP-2025w12)
