the internet is running on rage bait

If you’re on social media at all, there’s a good chance that you’ve scrolled through your feed recently, and you’ve felt like it’s becoming more and more difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t.

As if dealing with deepfakes and AI-generated content isn’t frustrating enough, creators are also deceiving us on purpose. And for profit.

And this stops being ‘funny’ or harmless when creators start exploiting real people’s fear for profit.

There are relatively new terms floating around the online ecosystem: “engagement farming” and “rage baiting” are now becoming common tactics. It’s simple: creators post something outrageous or cruel to bait you into stopping your scroll, commenting, and even arguing. (It’s probably happened to most of us without us even knowing).

Most of the time, it’s about monetization (especially if the creator is part of the Creator Program). Because the more engagement (likes, views, shares, etc.,) a post gets, the more money they earn.

Essentially, it’s manufactured outrage.

Personally, I’ve picked up on several creators doing this. And not only is it incredibly deceitful to lie to people for the mere purpose of filling your pockets, but people are using the current situation regarding ICE to do so.

It was one thing when a popular TikToker ‘taraswrld’ was posting a performative (yet harmless) series over a halter top that she wanted to wear on NYE to drive more engagement; but this creator (see screenshot below) claimed that his workers had “left his carrot farm in attempts to flee from ICE.”

He posted a video talking to the camera looking worried and stressed out (and no I won’t link it because I refuse to give him more engagement, you can go look him up yourself if you want to verify). In the video, he states that all his workers “fled from ICE,” leaving him with no one to harvest his crops (and he turns the camera to view the empty fields of farmland). This was therefore putting his farm at risk and leaving him nearly a million dollars in debt.

But it’s all a lie.

He doesn’t even have a carrot farm. And doing one quick Google search will show you that the claim doesn’t add up – meaning, harvesting carrots in January in Kansas is highly unlikely.

This creator actually owns a wheat farm.

And he even posted a comment in the comment section of one of his own videos stating that people were “falling for this fake video,” and [he] does this type of thing “all the time” because it made [him] “a few hundred thousand dollars last year” (see screenshot below).

He fabricated a story based on real humans suffering.

I took a screenshot of his comment and then posted said screenshot in the comment section of his video, to which he replied, “I make these videos obviously satire.”

But unfortunately no, it isn’t obvious. I disagree. Satire has to be legible. And it doesn’t hinge on real people’s fear to land.

And it’s f*cked up that anyone would take advantage of an incredibly serious matter in which human beings are living in fear every single day just so they can get more engagement on a video.

My point here is that we have got to stop taking everything we see on our feed for face value. Not just because AI exists – but also because people are lying on purpose, for profit.

It’s gross – and it has real consequences for so many underrepresented groups.

So, here’s a recommendation – before you react (whether it’s commenting, liking, reposting or sharing), verify it first.

At the very least, scroll and browse through the comment section and see what others are saying (some people might be calling out “hey guys, this is AI”). Take it a step further and click on the profile, check out their bio and the last 4-5 videos they’ve posted. If a profile is continuously posting the same video over and over again, there’s a good chance that it’s an AI account.

Do a simple Google search (for example, I went and googled if harvest season for carrots really is in January, turns out it’s not, lol).

We have to take the extra 30 seconds or 1-2 minutes to verify before we amplify something.

At this point, social media is like our town square, and your engagement is your currency. We have to stop handing it over so easily to people who are willing to exploit real human fear to get paid.

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