What is rage-baiting and why is it profitable?

Winta is part of a growing group of online creators making ‘rage bait’ content, where the goal is simple: record videos, produce memes and write posts that make other users viscerally angry, then bask in the thousands, or even millions, of shares and likes.

It differs from its internet-cousin clickbait, where a headline is used to tempt a reader to click through to view a video or article.

As marketing podcaster Andrea Jones notes: “A hook reflects what's in that piece of content and comes from a place of trust, whereas rage-baiting content is designed to be manipulative.”

But the grip negative content has on human psychology is something that is hardwired into us, according to Dr William Brady, who studies how the brain interacts with new technologies.

“In our past, this is the kind of content that we really needed to pay attention to,” he explains, “so we have these biases built into our learning and our attention.”

The growth in rage baiting content has coincided with the major social media platforms paying creators more for their content.

These creator programs - which reward users for likes, comments and shares, and allow them to post sponsored content - have been linked to its rise.

“If we see a cat, we're like ‘oh, that's cute’ and scroll on. But if we see someone doing something obscene, we may type in the comments ‘this is terrible’, and that sort of comment is seen as a higher quality engagement by the algorithm,” explains marketing podcaster Andréa Jones.

"The more content a user creates the more engagement they get, the more that they get paid.

"And so, some creators will do anything to get more views, even if it is negative or inciting rage and anger in people,” she says with a note of concern. "It leads to disengagement."

Rage bait content comes in many forms, from outrageous food recipes, to attacks on your favourite popstar. But in a year of global elections, particularly in the US, rage baiting has spread to politics too.

As Dr Brady observes: "There has been a spike in the build up to elections, because it's an effective way to mobilize your political group to potentially vote and take action.”

He notes the American election was light on policy, and instead centred around outrage, adding, “it was hyper-focused on ‘Trump is horrible for this reason’ or ‘Harris is horrible for that reason’.”