Winta Zesu
Winta Zesu made rage a business
“I get a lot of hate.” These are the words of content creator Winta Zesu, who last year earned $150,000 (£117,000) from her social media posts.
What makes Winta different from other influencers? People who comment on his posts and drive traffic to his videos often do so out of anger.
“Each of my videos that have been viewed millions of times is due to hateful comments,” explains the 24-year-old.
In these videos, she documents the life of a New York model, whose biggest problem is being too pretty. What some in the comments don't realize is that Winta is playing a character.
“I get a lot of nasty comments, people saying 'you're not the prettiest girl' or 'please get down, you're too confident',” she told the BBC from his New York apartment.
Winta's TikTok videos are designed to take people through
Winta is part of a growing group of online creators creating “rage bait” content, whose goal is simple: record videos, produce memes, and write articles that make other users viscerally angry, then profit from the thousands, even millions, of shares. and love.
It differs from its internet cousin, clickbait, where a headline is used to entice a reader to click through to view a video or article.
As marketing podcaster Andrea Jones notes: “A hook reflects the content of that content and comes from a place of trust, whereas ragging content is designed to be manipulative. »
But the hold negative content has on human psychology is something that is ingrained in us, according to Dr. William Brady, who studies how the brain interacts with new technologies.
“In our past, this is the kind of content we really had to pay attention to,” he explains, “so these biases are built into our learning and our attention.”
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The growth of rage-inducing content has coincided with 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 associated with its rise.
“If we see a cat, we're like, 'oh, that's cute,' and we keep scrolling. But if we see someone doing something obscene, we can type in the comments 'this is terrible,' and that type of comment is considered higher quality engagement by the algorithm,” explains marketing podcaster Andréa Jones.
“The more content a user creates, the more engagement they get, the more they get paid.
“And so, some creators are willing to do anything to get more views, even if it's negative or incites 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 cooking recipes to attacks on your favorite popstar. But in a year of global elections, particularly in the United States, incitement has also spilled over into politics.
As Dr. Brady observes: “There has been a big uptick in election preparation because it is an effective way to mobilize your political group to potentially vote and take action. »
He notes that the US election was light on politics and more focused on outrage, adding: “It was hyper-focused on 'Trump is horrible for this reason' or 'Harris is horrible for this reason.'
Getty Images
William Brady says this year's election caused anger to rise
An investigation by BBC social media investigations correspondent Marianna Spring found some X users were paid “thousands of dollars” by the social media site for sharing content including misinformation, AI-generated images and unfounded conspiracy theories.
Some who study trends worry that too much negative content could lead the average person to “disconnect.”
“It can be exhausting to experience such strong emotions all the time,” says Ariel Hazel, assistant professor of communications and media at the University of Michigan.
“It disables them from the information environment and we are seeing an increase in active avoidance of information around the world.”
Others worry about the normalization of offline anger and the eroding effects on people's trust in the content they view.
“Algorithms amplify outrage, they make people believe it’s more normal,” says social psychologist Dr William Brady.
He adds: “What we know from some platforms like more of a majority. »
The BBC contacted major social media platforms about the rage baiting on their sites, but received no response.
In October 2024, Adam Mosseri, director of Meta, posted on Threads about “an increase in engagement bait” on the platform, adding: “we are working to get it under control.”
While Elon Musk's rival platform X recently announced a change to its creator revenue sharing program, which will allow creators to be paid based on the engagement of the site's premium users, such as likes, replies and reposts. Previously, compensation was based on ads viewed by premium users.
TikTok and YouTube allow users to earn money from their posts or share sponsored content, but have rules that allow them to demonetize or suspend profiles that post misinformation. X does not have guidelines on misinformation in the same way.
Back in Winta Zesu's New York apartment, the conversation – which takes place a few days before the US elections – turns to politics.
“Yes, I don’t agree with people using rage bait for political reasons,” says the content creator.
“If they're genuinely using it to educate and inform people, that's great. But if they're using it to spread disinformation, I absolutely disagree with that.
“It’s not a joke anymore.”
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