Rage Bait
An ugly trend
I listened to episode 841 of the Almost 30 podcast on Spotify.
Their guest was Sarah Elkhaldy. She spoke a bit on rage bait being a major stressor & block in 2025 and how it has caused people’s frequencies to decline.
I’m glad someone finally said it. Not that I couldn’t say it, but the way Sarah put this into perspective was so relatable.
Rage baiting, especially on social media, is a dangerous trend in today’s world. More and more people resort to this outrageous method to gain more views & engagement online in order to further monetize their account and/or fill some kind of psychological void.
The vibe just screams “I want attention and to be the most important person in the room.”
What is rage baiting?
Here’s Google’s answer:
“Rage baiting is a manipulative tactic used online to intentionally provoke anger, frustration, or outrage to drive engagement—such as clicks, comments, and shares—ultimately boosting ad revenue or gaining attention. Creators often post intentionally incorrect, absurd, or inflammatory content to force viewers to react, turning the resulting emotional turmoil into profit.”
You know those people who just try to get a reaction out of you? It’s like that but to an online audience and 100 times worse. What makes it worse is both the wider audience and greedy intentions. These people pick an existing issue and go full spiral — most times with the facts being manipulated or outright lies being told, but presented as fact.
The sad thing is a lot of people fall for this. The amount of gullibility we have in society is mind-blowing.
Because these rage baiters speak with such authority — sometimes even charisma — people believe what they say and don’t even bother to look any further into the matter.
Discernment is truly an underrated virtue. Discernment, objectivity and critical thinking are important now more than ever before. With the plethora of information and misinformation — intentional or not — we have to keep an open mind and watchful eye.
All it takes to verify some times is a simple Google search. Or ask a real person if you personally know a someone in a relevant professional field, location, culture, religion, etc.
I personally know peers in my community who have resorted to rage baiting to gain followers and monetization. Their vibe changed when they began this journey. Maybe it was always there beneath the surface that was visible to me before or maybe something triggered them into this state.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, I’ve lived through rage baiting in real life. My narcissistic father would do this to me. But after many years of this experience and after having children of my own, I’ve learned how to deal with rage baiting.
How do you deal with rage baiting either online or offline?
Don’t fuel it.
The best reply is no reply.
The whole objective is to get you to have a big emotional reaction, ideally immediately. Don’t let them accomplish that objective.
Don’t let them steal your peace. Protect your peace. Your peace is sacred.
Unfollow them. Block them. Cut ties.
What you consume and who you interact with impacts your energy.
Take a second to pause and recognize when something or someone is depleting your peace instead of adding to it.
Furthermore, you can better train your algorithm, the more you unfollow, block, scroll past, report, mark “uninterested” or “show me less of this.”
You do have some control of your feed.
Special circumstances
If a rage baiter creates a situation that will put others in actual danger, report it to any and all appropriate organizations. Law enforcement, platform admin, etc.
I have engaged with a rage baiter I personally knew because time was of the essence and it was a nuanced situation. I did so privately and only stuck to the facts, not feelings. It took some tactful convincing, but they eventually saw my point and removed a particular post. I don’t believe this person meant actual harm, but the their content had the possibility of inadvertently providing sensitive information to others who do mean harm. Through compassion and leveling with this person, my goal was accomplished.
Final note
Rage baiting exists everywhere:
Online and offline.
In relationships and total strangers.
Official news outlets, podcasters, youtubers, influencers and self-proclaimed creators/journalists.
Every political party.
ETC.
Your attention is valuable to others. It should be valuable to you also.
Don’t take the bait. It dims your light. We need your light.