Rage Bait and Content Farms – The Bane of Social Media

In the meantime, I wanted to issue a PSA of sorts, because social media is a thing I both love and hate, probably with equal measure, at the same time. And there’s something that has me hating it lately, and that’s content farmers (content thieves) and rage bait.

Are you familiar with the term “rage bait”? Rage bait is when someone posts something outrageous for the sole purpose of getting interactions from people — likes, comments, shares. Why do they do this? Because they’re getting paid for it. Platforms like Facebook pay large pages for interactions, so there are pages that are filled with nothing but stupid rage bait posts, and they exist for no reason but to get a ton of engagement so that they’ll get paid lots of money (probably thousands of dollars) each month from Facebook for the activity on their pages. I don’t know if Instagram pays for engagement, but I know for a fact that Facebook and X (Twitter) do.

Not only that, but there are tons of pages that exist on nothing but stolen, uncredited content. This morning when I woke up, I grabbed my phone, opened up my Facebook app, and the very first post I saw on my Facebook feed was this post.

I’m sure that looks familiar all of you, right? Yes, this page not only stole all 17 of my pictures of my house, but they also copied my caption word for word and posted it on their page without crediting or tagging me. This is one page of probably thousands that exist on Facebook for the sole purpose of posting stolen content, without credit or tagging, to drive up engagement (likes, comments, and shares) so that they can get a monthly check from Facebook.

I can’t even express to you how much I hate these pages. And no, watermarking photos won’t help. I’ve been blogging for 17 years now, and for 16 of those years, I watermarked every single picture. But in this day and age of AI, watermarks can be removed in a second. These pages will take seconds to remove watermarks and repost stolen content for the sole purpose of making money. And since they only post stolen content, they have unlimited content at their fingertips that they can steal, post, and make money off of.

But the worst is the rage bait. I see post after post after post that is nothing but rage bait. They post these stupid pictures or videos (again, probably stolen) KNOWING that they’re going to drive people batty enough that people won’t be able to just scroll by without commenting on the stupidity of the post. That’s their whole goal. They want people to feel like they NEED to comment on the idiocy being displayed on the post. That drives up engagement, which drives up the amount of money they make.

Each time I see one of these rage bait posts with thousands of comments on them, all from people saying the same thing like, “This is so stupid!”, I just roll my eyes and think, “You’re doing exactly what they wanted you to do.” They know what they’re doing. They’re not as stupid as that one particular post may make them appear. Their only goal is engagement because they want the money your engagement with their post generates.

The second post I saw this morning, right after that post with my stolen content, was a rage bait picture and caption that I’ve seen posted on no fewer than 10 different Facebook pages so far. I should have taken a screen shot of it so that I could show you. I’m sure I’ll see it again today, so when I do, I’ll add a picture. But it’s a picture of a support post for a raised deck set on a concrete pier, but the support post is sitting only halfway on the concrete pier, with half of it floating off the edge of the concrete pier. And the caption reads something like, “I did this work for the homeowner, and she’s refusing to pay me!” Naturally, people see that picture, read that caption, think it’s the most ridiculous thing for a person to expect to be paid for such shoddy work, and can’t resist the urge to react and comment and let the person know how stupid he is for expecting payment for that kind of work.

I’ve seen so many posts like this. Another example is cooking videos where a woman might say, “I’m going to share the recipe for my kids’ favorite dinner!” while she proceeds to dump a bag of Cheetos into a casserole dish, cover it with chunks of Spam, a jar of “cheese product” and some other delightful ingredients, and then put it in the oven. She takes it out, puts that slop on a plate, and shows you the finished product. Naturally, people can’t resist the urge to say things like, “I can’t believe you feed that to your kids for dinner!” and “How do you not know how unhealthy that is for your kids?”

They know. THEY KNOW. It’s rage bait. The entire purpose of the post is to get you to comment, react to the post, share the post, etc. They are turning your rage and disgust into thousands of dollars of income every month.

This is my personal plea to you. Do not engage with the rage baiters and content farmers on any social media platform. Resist the urge. They know exactly what they’re doing, and it’s all for money. They know that shoddy work isn’t acceptable. They’re not really feeding their kids Cheeto and Spam casserole for dinner. All they’re doing is intentionally stirring you up so that you’ll engage with their posts so that they can make money. And they’re turning social media platforms like Facebook and X and the others that pay for engagement into absolute cesspools of stupidity. Don’t help them line their pockets. Engage with people and pages you know and trust. Leave the content farmers and rage baiters to rot on the vine.