The rage bait economy is going strong (TLP 2025w12)

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)