What is anger betting and why is it beneficial?

“I hate it so much”. The words of content creator Winta Zesu, who earned $150,000 (£117,000) last year from posting on social media.

What sets Vanta apart from other influencers? People who comment on his posts and send traffic to his videos often do so out of anger.

“Every single one of my videos that has gotten millions of views is because of hateful comments,” the 24-year-old explains.

In these videos, she documents the life of a New York City model whose biggest problem is being too beautiful. Some people in the comments don’t realize that Vinta is playing a role.

“I get a lot of nasty comments, people saying ‘You’re not the prettiest girl’ or ‘Please lower yourself, you have too much confidence’,” she told the BBC from her New York City apartment. She says

Winta is part of a growing group of online creators who create ‘ragebeat’ content, where the goal is simple: record videos, create memes and write posts that visually offend other users, then thousands, or Get shares even in millions. And likes.

This differs from its Internet cousin clickbait, where a headline is used to get the reader to click to view a video or article.

As marketing podcaster Andrea Jones notes: “A hook reflects what the content is about and comes from a place of trust, whereas content that provokes anger is designed to manipulate. “

But the grip of negative content on the human psyche is something that is hardwired into us, according to Dr. William Brady, who studies how the brain interacts with new technologies.

“In our past, this is the kind of material that we really needed to pay attention to,” he explains, “so we have these biases built into our learning and our attention.”

The rise of anger-inducing content has come 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 linked to its rise.

“If we see a cat, we’re like, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’ and scroll. But if we see someone doing something obscene, we can type in the comments, ‘That’s scary.’ ‘, and that type of comment is seen by the algorithm as a high-quality engagement,” explains marketing podcaster Andrea Jones.

“The more content a user creates, the more engagement they get, the more they get paid.

“And so, some creators will do anything to get more views, even if it’s negative or incites anger and rage in people.” she says with concern. “It leads to deviance.”

Outrage content comes in many forms, from outrageous food recipes to attacks on your favorite pop star. But in a year of global elections, especially in America, the temptation to anger has spilled over into politics.

As Dr. Brady observes: “The build-up to an election is accelerated, because it’s an effective way to mobilize your political group to potentially vote and take action.”

He noted that US elections were light on policy, and instead centered around outrage, adding, “It’s about ‘Trump is terrible for this reason’ or ‘Harris is terrible for this reason.’ There was more focus.”

An investigation by Mariana Spring, the BBC’s social media investigative reporter Found some users on X The social media site was being paid “thousands of dollars” to share content including misinformation, AI-generated images and unfounded conspiracy theories.

Some who study trends worry that too much negative content can cause the average person to “switch off.”

“It can be rare to have such heightened emotions all the time,” says Ariel Hazell, assistant professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan.

“It cuts them off from the news environment and we’re seeing an increasing amount of news avoidance around the world.”

Others worry about the normalization of offline outrage and the impact on people’s trust in the content they watch.

“Algorithms amplify anger, it makes people think it’s more normal,” says social psychologist Dr. William Brady.

He added: “What we know from some platforms like X is that politically extreme content is actually generated by a very small part of the user base, but algorithms can amplify it as they see fit. I’m in the majority.”

The BBC contacted major social media platforms about the outrage on their sites, but received no response.

In October 2024, Meta executive Adam Mosseri Posted on Threads. Regarding the “engagement bait increase” on the platform, it added, “We are working to bring it under control.”

While Elon Musk’s rival Platform X, Recently announced a change In its creator revenue sharing program that will see creators 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 monetize their posts or even share sponsored content, but there are rules that allow them to monetize or suspend profiles that post false information. X likewise has no guidelines on misinformation.

Back in Vinta Zissou’s New York City apartment, the conversation – taking place just days before the US election – turns to politics.

“Yeah, I don’t agree with people using anger bait for political reasons,” says the content creator.

“If they’re using it to genuinely educate and inform people, that’s fine. But if they’re using it to spread misinformation, I don’t agree with that at all.

“It’s not a joke anymore.”