Conflicts Gets Clicks & Snitches get Stitches.
Exposé on the Signature of Rage-Bait. A self-aggrandizing parody.
But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything
— Charles Darwin (via NPR)
Social Media Professional? Sick of creating “Quality Content”?
Are you a manager of a Facebook page or other social media property. Do you need to generate a lot of attention fast? Is your paycheck dependent on some arbitrary metric supplied to you thru a social platform? Do you need a way to provoke conversation to generate a return on your ‘engagement’? Do you not have any scruples when it comes to get getting your message out? Boy, do I have a solution to your problems!
Introducing Rage-Bait!
The newest sensation in shitposting!
It is the opium of the people but transformed for the modern internet era. It’s better than Propaganda! It’s so easy that anybody who’s everybody is doing it these days.
Join the dogpile.
Here, I’ll break it down for you:
- An appeal to a commonly held “belief”. Usually as a comforting simplification of a complex issue.
- An appeal to a commonly held “misunderstanding”. Usually a simplification of a myth that has an emotionally charged context.
- An appeal to a larger sense of personal identity: patriotism, gender, class, or other culturally defined boundary. Don’t have one? Make one!
- An appeal to “Like” if you agree. Quickly! Get all your friends to see your sentiment. Don’t find yourself accidentally on the side of the outgroup! We don’t like the outgroup, do we?
- Bonus points: if it inspires subtle divisiveness. Your less liked “family” can argue and give you that feeling of being righteous. Fuck those people who shamed you, amiright??
Beauty of rage-bate: if you do it well, you don’t need a real message!
You can just flagrantly post upsetting memes until the money just rolls in! Screw trying to build a community or actually generating real value in the world. If the people want to waste their time on identity politics and take great pleasure in policing each other, who are you to stop them?
Golly gee whiz, I’m doing a version of it right now. I’m practically giving the trick away by suggesting that many popular social media properties are full of empty calories and manipulative insight porn. But don’t let that stop you!
Apply outrage to the forehead. Imagine how many clicks you’ll get!
For only $19.99, I’ll share all the dark marketing patterns & underground secrets they aren’t telling you!
Secrets that only years of obsession in human psychology can give you. All yours for the taking for one small fee.
