Sports Editor
Over the past few months, a trend known as “ragebait” has emerged on the Internet. The trend involves intentionally doing something outrageous to provoke someone for your own benefit. Its genius lies in the fact that it makes you, the victim, feel morally obligated to respond. You don’t need talent, hard work, or any relevant skill to ragebait someone. For example, there is no point in learning about music theory when you can simply post a YouTube video titled “Why Michael Jackson was a bad musician” and garner thousands of hate comments.
The scientific reason as to why ragebait works is that we humans are often unable to put aside our overinflated egos and scroll past it. People have a strong desire to demonstrate their intelligence, and when someone intentionally makes what we believe to be a factually incorrect statement, we find ourselves compelled to comment on it.
Ragebait is understandable if it benefits you, but some people do it for no reason. For instance, imagine yourself at school. Your chemistry teacher is handing out the grades for the test you took last Friday. You look at your grade and see that you got a 75%. You are slightly disappointed with it, but feel you deserve it considering that you didn’t study at all. Your classmate looks over at you and notices your grade. They say, “Whoa. You did so well. Nice job!” When you ask them what they got, they tell you they got a 98% and say, “I did horribly. I missed a question about the chemical formula of benzene.” Meanwhile, you barely understand how the periodic table works. This is, unfortunately, one of the most popular forms of ragebait. The worst part is that they don’t even realize they are actively ragebaiting you.
The most infuriating part about ragebait is how people use it to justify acting like five-year-olds. Imagine you are standing in a long lunch line, waiting patiently for your nourishment. When you finally pick up your food, you sit down, and as soon as you are about to pick up your French fry, someone comes in and inhales all your food. When you get mad, they respond with, “Haha, you fell for my ragebait.” Picture the anger, frustration, and hatred you would feel at that moment. At this point, you would probably be planning out war crimes against said person. This is what ragebait has become: legalized intimidation with a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Although it is hard to accept, ragebait works, and we must fight together to stop it from ruining our society. The next time you see someone post “Pizza should be dipped in ranch,” do yourself a favor and scroll. Tell yourself that posting hate comments helps them more than it hurts them. Do not give them the satisfaction of their ragebait succeeding. If you respond, remember that you risk losing your dignity and your sanity.
Categories: Humor