The Internet is a lot like a wild, uncharted tropical rainforest. It’s perfectly suited to harbor all types of life, from discourse to new forms of content. Digital Darwinism tells us that some types of content will rise to the top of the metaphorical food chain. In today’s online landscape, one species of content dominates all others. It’s the apex predator of the Internet jungle, from the kingdom “Furious” and phylum “Pissed off.”
Nowhere else in the cultural landscape is anger propagated as well as it is on the Internet. It’s seemingly present everywhere you go online: social media, YouTube and columns like this one have all been infected with the blight of being mad.
Anger has, of late, been a new genre of online entertainment. This is seen at its most successful in the YouTube gaming circle. Every single day, there are hundreds of hours worth of videos that feature guys yelling over footage of a video game uploaded to YouTube. The source of their fury varies — sometimes it’s because the game is prompting the yelling, either from being too difficult or just plain bad. Other times they’re yelling for the sake of it. The entertainment value in this case comes from the absurdity of a grown adult getting worked up over something so benign as a video game. These types of videos garner millions of views and their creators garner fame and fortune. Yet, the question remains as to why so many people tune in to have their eardrums ruptured while video of “Dark Souls” plays in the background.
This type of anger-tainment is not confined to gaming, however. BuzzFeed’s popular video series “Whine About It” features host Matt Bellassai drinking an entire bottle of wine at his desk whilst complaining about everything from kids to weddings to, most recently, the entire season of autumn. Having someone rant to you for four to five minutes every week sounds like a layer of the “Inferno” that even Dante felt was too cruel to mention. This is something we would not tolerate in real life, and yet the content is shared on Facebook more than 100,000 times.
While anger in visual form continues to pull views online, its written byproducts flourish as well. The trend of these articles, usually titled something like, “Why X is actually terrible,” (where X is substituted for a beloved figure or idea) has nearly eclipsed actual news. Tearing down a closely held belief or celebrity is a more subtle type of ire. It doesn’t slap you in the face, but makes you rethink all of what you hold dear. Articles like these inspire feelings of inferiority and a “maybe-I-was-wrong” sensation that makes you feel stupid for having liked that thing in the first place. The Tumblr user base has taken this trend and capitalized on its rage-inducing zenith known as “Your Fave Is Problematic.” In a typical post, a user pulls quotes and/or images about a public figure and complies them to show everything that person has said or done that would make him or her “problematic.” Once deemed officially problematic, anyone who considers himself or herself a fan of that person must retire his or her fandom or face the shame that comes with having a “problematic fave.” There’s some worth in pointing out the politically incorrect things celebrities do and say, but this meme has solely become a way to humiliate others.
But what is it about rage that makes this kind of content so popular? Anger is a pathological appeal, one that goes straight for your emotions and holds on tight. Any advertiser will tell you that emotions are the best way to connect with an audience, and negative emotions are even better. Look at any political ad that relies on fear and anger to do its convincing, for example. Compare that to an ad that uses facts and rational thought to sway viewers. Which one is more effective? Spoiler: it’s the first one. The rules of human behavior are the same on the Internet, which is why a hate-filled rant against Obamacare will circulate faster on Facebook than actual data about the program.
All this negativity swirling around the digital landscape must certainly mean that people are angrier now than they have ever been. At no other time in history has there been such an abundance of rage available for public consumption. Perhaps it is not that people are angrier in this era, but that they now a forum with which to express that anger. Imagine having a soapbox so large that people across the globe could hear you ranting. The information age has given us what we all secretly wanted — a place where everyone can hear us complain.
