Rage-baiting, wherein creators intentionally provoke anger to drive engagement, is becoming increasingly prevalent in the digital landscape. Influencers such as Winta Zesu have capitalized on this trend, raising concerns about its impact on content perception and societal trust.
The Profitable World of Rage-Baiting: How Anger Fuels Online Fame
The Profitable World of Rage-Baiting: How Anger Fuels Online Fame
Content creators like Winta Zesu leverage outrage to amass views and earnings, revealing a dark underbelly of social media engagement.
The phenomenon of rage-baiting has taken the online world by storm, allowing content creators to profit by inciting anger rather than awareness. Winta Zesu, a 24-year-old influencer, exemplifies this trend by earning $150,000 in 2022 through videos that are met with considerable hate. Remarkably, Zesu underscores a key aspect of her persona: the intentional character she plays, portraying the life of a New York City model whose purported dilemma is her excessive beauty.
Zesu is part of a rising tide of social media influencers who excel in crafting 'rage-bait' content, seeking to provoke strong emotions from their audiences rather than merely entertain. Unlike clickbait, which relies on enticing headlines, rage-baiting thrives on emotional manipulation, as described by marketing expert Andrea Jones. This method capitalizes on inherent human biases that favor negative content, as footballing expert Dr. William Brady outlines.
As social media platforms incentivize creators through financial rewards for engagement, the rage-baiting trend has seen robust growth. Seeking views and interaction, content creators generate more outrage-centric posts, which create higher quality engagement according to algorithmic standards. The result is a self-perpetuating cycle where creators feel pressured to push boundaries, often resulting in divisive content that can disengage audiences from the overall news environment.
This eruption of negativity isn't contained to entertainment; it has seeped into the political arena as well. With the lead-up to significant global elections, the concept of rage baiting repurposed as political discourse has garnered alarming traction. Instances depicting divisive rhetoric have proliferated on platforms like X, with financial rewards offered for spreading misinformation or sensationalized conspiracy theories. Experts warn of the potential repercussions, noting that continuous exposure to outrage-inducing content may wear down public engagement.
Besides damaging social norms and trust in media, the echo chamber of negativity constructed by algorithms can skew perceptions of political representation, making a minuscule faction of extremists appear dominant. In a bid to counter this phenomenon, platforms are exploring ways to regulate and mitigate engagement-baiting practices, but effective solutions remain elusive.
In a candid conversation ahead of the 2024 US elections, Zesu herself expressed discomfort with the political harnessing of rage-baiting, indicating that while educational content is valuable, misinformation undermines its integrity. "It's not a joke anymore," she asserts, emphasizing the dire need for responsible content creation amidst the growing chaos of online discourse.
