Attention today lasts about as long as a TikTok swipe. Our feeds overflow with more images, headlines, and hot takes than our brains were ever built to process. The result? Attention isn’t something you earn halfway anymore; you have to seize it, chokehold-style. And in today’s culture, the strongest grip comes not from beauty or brilliance, but from outrage. Controversy - it’s clickbait’s older, hotter cousin. Rage bait isn’t a glitch in the system; it is the system.
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The evidence is everywhere. Sabrina Carpenter’s cheeky (??) album cover, spawned more discourse than the album itself. Then there was the American Eagle disaster, where denim met alt-right aesthetics. TikTok dragging Recho Omondi’s $55k job listing like it was a federal crime. Rage has become the seasoning on every cultural meal. And increasingly, it feels like if a moment doesn’t come pre-packaged with outrage, it barely registers.
