RAGEBAIT ME, PLS

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Ragebait dominates online culture by provoking outrage for clicks, turning extreme emotions into entertainment and social currency. It thrives on polarisation and contradiction, letting people love-to-hate and hate-to-love the same content. For younger audiences, it becomes a hyper-literate, playful way to explore culture and subvert norms, but widespread exposure breeds numbness as emotions are flattened and gamified by algorithms. The cycle rewards provocation and clarity over nuance, embedding performative outrage into everyday interaction.