6th November 2023
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Scrolling online these days can feel like a self-induced bombardment of your attention. With home pages constantly filled with people either trying to tell you something or sell you something, it can feel a bit much. This is nothing new. Since the internet’s been around, people on it have constantly been fighting for attention, as increasingly the job market becomes intertwined with the internet.
A site this was most prominent on, originally, was YouTube. Here, content creators would, and still do, ‘clickbait’ their audience – the term describes videos which intentionally sensationalise or mislead through their appearance. When one can stand to gain, financially speaking, from an increased viewership, it makes sense that this would happen. However, the strategies used by creators to push their videos further have changed, and not necessarily in a good way.
Rage bait concerns videos which primarily intend to spark controversy in order to gain views. What rage bait relies on is the algorithms used by social media sites like Instagram and TikTok, which promote videos which have a larger volume of comments. Rage bait videos, by definition, involve the creator attempting to enrage their viewers so that they leave a nasty comment or reaction, thus likely increasing the viewership. Creators may act intentionally stupid, mislead their viewers in an obvious way or post content which is bound to enact an emotional reaction. Thus, more views equates to a bigger pay check come the end of the month.
Every now and then, a video appears on my feed of someone riding a bike around city traffic, running red lights and nearly causing collisions. As a cyclist, I think ‘What an idiot’ and rush to the comments to find someone agreeing with me. All this does, though, is increase my watch time on the video, making it more likely to then be seen by others. The idiot posting the video wins, while I just get angry.
It comes down to the fact that rage bait is more likely to generate an emotional response. Posts where people are agreeing on a matter, or are less offensive are often less likely to garner the same number of views. When you pander to the easiest and most common reaction, however, the views come flooding in. Once you’re hooked, its hard not to get involved too, even on the basest levels.
Because it’s important, is why. It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, just put the phone down and you’ll be alright’. While I agree with this idea, it’s a short term fix. With the amount of people that not only have access to the internet and sites like this but use them on a day-to-day basis, making these sites as safe to navigate as possible should be an important goal.
Sites like TikTok make it easy to see video after video. When one loses interest, they can simply keep scrolling, giving rise to the term ‘Doomscrolling’. And if every video is trying to enact a ferocious, emotionally charged response from you, its effect can be draining.
The real danger of this is the hate it spreads. Rage bait is manipulative. It is people trying to cause petty squabbles and arguments while they gain without a second thought. It promotes divide at a time when we should be enhancing community. It wants you to label that person ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’, and before we know it, that becomes a normal reaction to everyday life. Online platforms like this already bear a reputation for being hateful – havens where one can go to be nasty, often with little repercussions.
The danger this can pose for young people is especially potent. When hate and anger become such a regular (and unnecessary) part of one’s growing brain, it becomes more likely for these attitudes to be held and clung onto. Seeing such emotion everyday can lead to one thinking that’s the norm, that these reactions are not only justified but encouraged. An investigation by the BBC (which you can read here) saw social psychologist Dr William Brady state that “Algorithms amplify outrage, it makes people think it’s more normal”. How can this be a positive thing, in a time where we already have so much turbulence on a social level?
The effect this has can be seen right now. With more people recognising how mentally exhausting social media can be, more people are dissociating themselves with any form of online communications. As the BBC article points out, this leads to more people actively avoiding news outlets around the world. And its easy to see why, when one feels like they are being grasped again and again by these online services. But if more people are wilfully becoming unaware to avoid such intensity, this only helps to promote social ignorance.
If this is such an issue, then what’s the fix? Who has the responsibility to change things?
On a personal level, the mantra repeated above of ‘Just walk away from it’ does help. When it gets too much, put the phone down and find something else to do.
But that shouldn’t be the end of it. As I mentioned above, these social media algorithms amplify videos like this, so surely a change there can be made? It’s my belief that social media sites have a social responsibility to be as safe to navigate as possible. Inciting such strength in emotion from often younger viewers and having it appear normal cannot be good for anyone. However, when considering the vast engagement these videos bring to apps like TikTok, there really isn’t any incentive for the companies to enforce these changes. If TikTok bring about too much control over what videos can and can’t be posted, they’ll have complaints about infringements on rights to free speech. It seems like at this moment in time, the responsibility falls on you, the viewer, to know your limits of ‘screen time’ and to not get too invested.
All opinions described above are the thoughts of the writer themselves and do not reflect the attitudes of Liverpool Guild Student Media or Liverpool Guild of Students.
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