When Outrage Goes Viral: What’s Ragebait and How to Spot It

This is a guest blog post by Christian Beltran and Jared Celniker. Christian is a Social Psychology Ph.D. Student at UC Irvine, and Jared is a political psychologist and Research Director for the Humility in Inquiry Project at ASU. Both are interested in reducing toxic political divides.

Does it feel like many people online are purposefully trying to make you angry? In some cases, they are. Content designed to outrage you is called “ragebait,” a cousin of “clickbait.” Ragebait seeks to provoke anger for financial or political gain — or even just to get attention for attention’s sake. 

In non-political contexts, ragebait can be relatively harmless or silly, like purposefully putting on too much makeup to rile people up. But there are much more harmful forms that involve offensive statements, deceiving imagery, and misleading information. 

For example, a recent BBC investigation found that some users on X were being paid thousands of dollars by the site for sharing content, which included incorrect information, AI-generated images, and unfounded conspiracy theories. The content spanned the political spectrum: some of the accounts shared conservative-leaning views, and some shared liberal-leaning views. There can be a major financial incentive to get clicks — and anger makes clicking and sharing more likely. 

Anger Isn’t Necessarily the Problem

Outrage isn’t always bad, of course. Anger emerges when people feel thwarted from reaching their goals and want to take action to change their circumstances. This desire to affect change can be a vital force in political and social movements. Righteous outrage helped fuel movements for civil rights, labor protections, and public health initiatives like the campaign against smoking. When we feel a moral violation has occurred, it’s natural — and often important — to speak out. 

Given outrage’s success at garnering more social media attention, inciting moral anger has become a primary tactic for both good-faith activists and bad-faith ragebaiters. Some might perceive outrage-inducing content as genuine activism, while others might view it as an attempt to garner online engagement for insincere, profit-driven (or division-driven) reasons. It can be difficult to objectively say what’s ragebait and what isn’t. One person’s ragebait may be another person’s morally righteous reporting. Your anger doesn’t necessarily mean someone is unethically trying to manipulate you.

But when you feel outraged, that can be a sign to think more about what angered you. Find out who created it and what their intentions might be. Is this creator someone who frequently posts outrage-inducing content? Does this seem like a video/comment that’s mainly trying to get a hostile reaction out of you, as opposed to educating you?

When you think something online is aimed at unethically “rage farming,” you can decide, “I’m not going to share this because I don’t want to unnecessarily add to our toxic divides.”  

Ragebaiter Tactics

Many ragebaiters aim to provoke moral outrage, which is distinct from standard forms of anger and drives people to punish and condemn wrongdoers. Some ragebait will seem aimed at increasing dehumanization towards wrongdoers and political opponents as a group. Unethical ragebait can be seen as amplifying toxicity and conflict. 

Potential ragebait tactics:

• Misleading or exaggerated headlines
• Emotionally charged language
• Exaggerated, unrepresentative, or distorted examples (for example, acting as if an individual’s bad behavior is representative of an entire group)
• Polarizing “us vs. them” framing
• Quotes or images that appear to be “missing pieces of the puzzle”
• Information that has been proven false.

How Media Algorithms Fuel the Fire

Social media platforms often reward the most provocative content. Algorithms are tuned to promote engagement — clicks, shares, comments — not accuracy or empathy. This is part of the reason why ragebait spreads so quickly. 

Ironically, despite the popularity of divisive content, most people say they’d prefer if that type of content didn’t do so well. People seem to recognize the existence and dangers of ragebait, even though they might struggle to resist it when it’s put right in front of them. 

How To Resist Ragebait — Even When You’re Angry

Here are a few ways you can try to distinguish between unethical ragebait and more standard, reasonable types of reporting or activism: 

• Pause before reacting. Ask yourself: “Is this trying to inform me — or inflame me?”
• Interrogate the source. Is the event in question a representative and meaningful one, or a one-off and/or fairly rare event that’s being used to provoke rage?
• Train your feed. Mute, unfollow, or mark “not interested” on content that consistently amplifies outrage. Research shows that doing so can reduce animosity and improve your social media experience.
• Respond constructively. Share solutions and bridge-building efforts, not just takedowns and hot takes.

Recognizing these features of ragebait helps you separate emotionally manipulative content from legitimate reporting or activism. When you pause to assess intent, scrutinize sources, and curate your feed, you’re not just protecting your own mental health. You’re avoiding adding fuel to our toxic divides — and you’re depriving unethical ragebait-makers of attention, and maybe even income. The more we practice this discernment, the harder it becomes for ragebait to hijack our attention and influence our emotions.

Don’t Take the Bait

It’s easy to feel angry when you encounter something that seems absurd or offensive online — especially if it touches your identity or values. That’s part of being human. But in today’s climate, we need to be mindful of how often that outrage is coaxed or provoked for clicks or clout.

Ragebait is powerful but not inevitable. Sometimes, choosing not to respond — or responding with curiosity or grace — is the most radical move we can make.

Next time you feel your blood boiling, pause. Ask: “Is this content trying to make me a better citizen—or just a more profitable pawn?” Ragebaiters design their content to make you angry and exploit your emotions. Don’t let them win! It can be hard, but reacting constructively — or not reacting at all — is the way to win against ragebait. Ultimately, the choice is ours.

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About Christian Beltran: He is a Social Psychology Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine. He studies how morality and various social-cognitive processes exacerbate political divisions, hinder bipartisanship, and undermine efforts to address societal issues. 

About Jared Celniker: He is the Research Director for the Humility in Inquiry Project at Arizona State University. He has a PhD in social psychology, and he studies how political and moral judgment shapes what we believe and how we think.