There’s another type of internet junk that is more insidious than the obvious spam and AI filler content: It’s the ragebait and karma farming that happens on social media.

The weird part about ragebait content is that most of it doesn’t have an obvious monetary benefit to the posters. The goal appears to be generating as many upvotes and engagement as possible. There might be some secondary monetary goal such as building a following to sell to them later (Instagram, TikTok) or to build an account’s reputation to use it in spam operations later (Reddit, Twitter). However, I think a lot of people just post the content for the thrill of getting a lot of upvotes and seeing people worked up.

Try checking the front page of Reddit while logged out (to see the default subs). It’s a wild place that describes an alternate reality in which the worst possible outcomes are the norm. During COVID, everyone was going to die. After the vaccine, the talk was about everyone getting evicted and the “homeless wave” that was coming. Now that inflation is a topic, there are daily posts about how masses of people are going to starve to death because nobody can afford food.

A couple days ago one of the top posts on Reddit was a photo of 30 pills and nothing more than a title claiming it costs $12,000. Thousands of angry comments followed, demanding riots in the street and revolutions and talking about people dying. Buried in the comments was a single thread where someone actually looked up the price of the pills: It was $34, not $12,000. The manufacturer also has a program where people who can’t afford it can get the pills for free. It didn’t stop the post from staying on top Reddit for a day and convincing countless numbers of people of a complete lie.

This content seems to appeal to people who enjoy being outraged and don’t mind an exaggerated lie as long as it is in furtherance of a narrative they believe. People will look at that outrage thread and say it’s okay because America does have a drug price problem even if that story was a complete fabrication. This is the root problem: Too many people like the ragebait, the karma farming posts, and soon, the infinite AI generated content coming to feed them exactly the outrage they want to read every day.