Rage Baiting: The Toxic Trend That Has Taken Over Social Media

I’m sure you’ve fallen for it many times…

This image was created with the assistance of DALL·E 3 on Bing.

Have you ever watched a video that upset you so much, that you wondered, “How can anyone say something like that?!” and you ended up commenting angrily even though you rarely leave comments?

Well, chances are, you were rage baited.

Rage baiting is when someone purposely posts content to get a negative reaction from people to get attention, engagement, and money.

It’s unfortunately a quick and effective way to grow a channel and is especially rampant on TikTok, where rage bait videos can get millions of views in one day.

When you leave a comment on TikTok, you’re showing the algorithm that the content is engaging and it will keep promoting that video to other people and will also keep showing you similar content.

TikTok doesn’t care that the video they’re promoting is rage bait, they just care that people are clicking on the video, watching the entire thing, and leaving comments.

But TikTok is not the only place where rage bait exists. It’s across all social media platforms and can be in the form of videos, podcasts, and articles. Pretty much any way you consume content, you’re sure to find rage bait.