The Economics of Rage Bait

Clickbait describes a phenomenon where a headline is given a deliberately provocative title to try to get users to engage with some kind of online content. We may bemoan the phenomenon, but it persists because it’s effective.

The most effective form of clickbait is known as rage bait. As the name suggests, rage bait is when content producers try to get engagement by deliberately angering people with their content. Again, while this might seems deplorable, it persists because it works – content that makes people angry is more likely to be engaged with than content eliciting any other reaction.

This simple observation can help explain why some of the most successful and high profile people in public conversation often seem needlessly antagonistic. The snarkiest, most enraging people will tend to rise in prominence, giving an incentive even to those who are actually more mild mannered to put on a deliberately antagonistic persona. Rage sells.

At this point, its worth considering Sherwin Rosen’s work on the economics of superstars. The gist of this idea is along these lines. Consider acting as a profession in, say, the year 1600. Across Europe, there would be a very large number of stage actors to fill theater demand. The number of actors must be large because each performance is local – it can only be seen by people in a particular theater at a particular time. It also meant the quality of actor performances was heavily determined by local conditions. If your local troupe consisted of mostly mediocre actors, that was the best you could get. And an actor of great talent was still limited in how much he could benefit from that talent, for the same reason. Even if he joined a traveling theater troupe and expanded his range, he can still only perform one place at a time.

Over time, and as technology improved, actors were not limited in the same way in how far their performances could reach. As the movie industry arose, suddenly the most skilled actors could have the entire world as their audience. And on the other side of the coin, audiences could benefit from the performances of the most skilled actors in the world. The same was true with music – a couple of centuries ago, someone with Bruce Springsteen’s level of performance ability couldn’t have had the actual Springsteen’s level of success – their market simply wasn’t big enough for that. Nor could anyone have benefitted from their Springsteen-level skills unless they happened to be within the area where this musician could perform.

(I’m personally not a huge fan of Springsteen, I just grabbed his name out of the air because he’s been very successful over a very long time – feel free to substitute your own favorite musical act.)

This change in reach brought about by technology had a couple of effects. One, the highest levels of success were more heavily concentrated among the very highest performers. In the past, being one standard deviation above average in acting ability could have secured you a career, and being five standard deviations above average wouldn’t have made your career all that much more successful than your one sigma counterpart. But today, when movies have global releases, only a very small number of actors are needed to serve the global market. People who live in Wichita, Kansas aren’t solely dependent on the quality of actors who reside in Wichita. They can witness the performances of the very best actors the world has to offer. To have a shot at being a successful actor, you need to be at the far right end of the distribution.

The second effect is that even very small differences in ability at the top end can have huge effects in overall success. If you have 90% of Anthony Hopkin’s acting skills, you don’t end up with 90% of Anthony Hopkin’s career success. You’re more likely to be 10% as successful as Hopkins, as he wins Oscars and gets remembered as one of the all time greats, and you have a minor supporting role on a modestly well received sitcom.

I think rage bait follows a similar dynamic, for the same reasons. With the reach of internet and cable TV, content producers have virtually no limits with how far they can reach – and with how many competitors they have. If I’m 90% as rage-inducing as some other content creator, I won’t be 90% as successful for it. This creates an incentive for people to keep upping the ante – but it doesn’t have the same natural plateau as the distribution of something like acting skills or musical ability. People can choose to be more provocative much more freely than they can choose to be more skilled with an electric guitar.

I find this to be a discouraging analysis – but then I look at the world around me and it seems to explain things pretty well. Still, what do you think? Does this seem to fit your observations, dear EconLog reader? I’d love to be convinced I’m wrong about this!