On social networks, videographers share publications that enrage Internet users with the sole aim of generating views, and therefore maximizing their income. Some have generated $150,000 in one year with this technique.
Finding original recipe ideas, proposing fashionable outfits or doing viral choreographies: very little for Winta Zesu, an influencer on Tiktok. To make a career on the short video application, the content creator is relying on a completely different strategy. She prefers to publish videos that infuriate Internet users… and generate millions of views.
On her Tiktok account, followed by 875 million subscribers, she plays the role of a New York model who thinks she is “too pretty”. “Being the prettiest celebrity means the cameras are always on you,” she explains in a video. “I can't believe they stopped the show just to sing for me because I was the most beautiful,” she boasts in another post, where she insinuates that the café where she is broadcasting a song called Glamour in honor of her beauty.
Absurd food, celebrity reviews and politics
An attitude considered by some to be too boastful and egocentric and which annoys Internet users. In the comments, many expressed their irritation. “Stop lying, you are not the most beautiful,” wrote one user. “No one is looking at you so calm down,” adds another.
“I get a lot of hate,” admits Winta Zesu, interviewed by the BBC. “I get a lot of nasty comments, people say 'you're not the prettiest girl' or 'please calm down, you're too confident'.” Viewers who have obviously not understood that these videos are only a story invented by Winta.
But it was precisely these comments that made the videographer famous. “Each of my videos that has been viewed by millions is because of hateful comments,” she observes. Some of its content has in fact exceeded one million views, and some reached 30 million views. Which allowed the influencer to earn no less than 150,000 dollars (143,000 euros) on Tiktok in 2023.
And Winta Zesu is far from an exception. As the English media reports, on social networks, more and more content creators are banking on “rage baiting”, content that enrages Internet users.
“Rage bait” content comes in different forms. If some videographers, like Winta Zesu, adopt a detestable attitude, others prefer to cook absurd dishes, criticize a very fashionable star… and even political figures.
Create engagement
But the objective is always the same: to generate traffic and above all, likes, shares and comments. Because the more engagement a content creator creates on their networks, the more their income increases.
“If we see a cat, we're like, 'oh, that's cute,' and we keep scrolling. But if we see someone doing something lewd, we can type in the comments, 'that's terrible', and these kinds of comments are considered higher quality engagement by the algorithm,” marketing podcaster Andréa Jones told the BBC.
If these publications are successful, they worry the experts. Indeed, Marianna Spring, social media specialist for the BBC, revealed in an investigation that some X users earned “thousands of dollars” by sharing content likely to enrage users such as fake news, images generated by AI or completely unfounded conspiracy theories.
At the risk, therefore, of alienating Internet users from the platforms. “It can be exhausting to feel such intense emotions all the time,” says Ariel Hazel, assistant professor of communications and media at the University of Michigan. “It distracts from the news, and we see an increase in active news avoidance across the world.”
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