I keep seeing people call all sorts of things that absolutely should not be “rage” inducing rage bait and I’m confused how this term has evolved, what does it mean when something like a dumb question or a slightly censored meme is now “rage bait”? To me rage bait means something explicitly made to make you made, playing the devils advocate or purposefully edgy and polarizing content but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. To me it it feels like the way woke just means anything I don’t like, is the other side of the coin rage bait is also anything I don’t like I just don’t happen to be a conservative? Sorry if this post is rage bait, I’m genuinely asking and I have a touch of the ‘tism.
I consider rage bait anything that purposefully riles people up without any productive outcomes. Say, you can have a heated argument with someone because you have an interest in the topic and/or seeing other people’s points of view (even if you strongly disagree), but if your purpose is just for the sake of getting reactions, well, that’s ragebaiting.
It overlaps with trolling, but trolling is more broad- you can troll to make people confused, shocked, to mock someone in particular, etc. Trolling includes also getting people into gotcha moments, engaging in a heated argument just to be annoying to one person in particular, trolls like to see people make fools out of themselves. Ragebaiting doesn’t necessarily have that, it’s more about getting the crowd to express their annoyance at something, not necessarily your actions.