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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12897546" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="drew-afualo" source="Orion">Drew Afualo</keyword> has built up 3.6 million <keyword id="11894125" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tiktok" source="Orion">TikTok</keyword> followers by critiquing misogynistic content.</li><li>Afualo said she's become the "crusader of <keyword id="11892913" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="women" source="Orion">women</keyword>" on the app, a role she's happy with.</li></ul>Drew Afualo never intended to become TikTok's "crusader of women," but it's a title she said she's happy to bear.Afualo, who has built up <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drewafualo?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3.6 million TikTok followers</a> by critiquing sexist content on the app, began her TikTok journey by telling stories of her own negative experiences with men.That "snowballed" into her becoming the app's unofficial <keyword id="11914028" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="misogyny" source="Orion">misogyny</keyword> and <keyword id="6390075" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sexism" source="Orion">sexism</keyword> watchdog — combating men's sexist comments with jokes about their hairlines and height — she told Insider. Now, these videos regularly rack up millions of views.Afualo's original dream was to be a sports journalist. But after landing a job at the NFL in 2019, she was fired after about 10 months. Afualo <a href="https://www.brittanykrystle.com/drew-afualo-on-becoming-a-tiktok-star-roasting-misogynists-handling-haters-empowering-women/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recalled to Brittany Krystle in a recent podcast</a> that while it was devastating at the time, it serendipitously led her to spend more time on TikTok at the beginning of 2020. Then, a few weeks later, the coronavirus pandemic hit, and content creation became Afualo's full time job.Now, she is so well-known that women will flood the comments of TikToks they see as sexist to try and summon her — and her characteristic laugh has become a popular sound on the app, with women using it to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/original-sound-7049365758761093894" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signify female power</a>. In one popular post, Afualo, who is 26 and lives in California, responded to a TikTok video in which a man criticized a woman who was getting hundreds of thousands of likes for "showing off" her figure."We're telling women that we don't want to see them be hot?" Afualo said in her response, which <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drewafualo/video/7037646389161118982?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">received over 3 million views</a>. "I bet you watched that video one million times you perve."On another occasion, a male creator went viral with a video calling for women to "go on a calorie deficit," referring to the diet technique.Afualo said she was tagged in comments on the original post so many times that the creator had blocked her before she even had a chance to respond. When Afualo started responding to this kind of content, she said she was in "disbelief" about how rife it was on TikTok. Sometimes, she said, it feels like her boat is sinking — and she's "constantly shoveling water out of it.""No matter how much I shovel out, more pours in," Afualo said. "I'll never be out of a job, that's for sure."<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/legal/terms-of-service?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TikTok's community guidelines</a> prohibit "hateful" content, including anything that dehumanizes an individual or a group on the basis of protected attributes, including sex and gender."TikTok is deeply committed to fostering a welcoming, inclusive and safe place for people to share their creativity," a spokesperson for the platform told Insider. "We do not tolerate hateful behaviour directed at individuals or groups because of their sex or gender identity, and we take action against any such content or behaviours, including by removing videos, comments and accounts."<h2>Afualo's viral takedowns often insult the physical features of the men she's critiquing</h2>Afualo's videos include some creative insults about the men she is criticizing. In response to a man who said women forget sometimes to "suck in" their stomach, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@drewafualo/video/7025631285838368006?lang=en&amp;is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afualo said</a> he was built like a "palm tree" and resembled the cartoon character "Roddy from 'Flushed Away.'"There's a misconception that women always have to take "the high road," she said, and lean towards the assumption that men just don't know better and need to be gently educated.Afualo doesn't do that — she fights fire with fire."I don't do the education bullshit because it's not my job, frankly," she said. "It's not my job to educate you on why you shouldn't hate women."She gets some pushback, mostly from men, she said, who say she is sinking to the same level as those she is criticizing. But to this, Afualo highlighted that her comments are always "silly" in nature. "I said you look like The Good Dinosaur and all of a sudden I'm meanest girl ever," she told Insider. "You made a joke and I made a joke, but somehow mine's mean, and yours isn't? OK."Some people criticize Afualo for making fun of men for being "bald" or "short," but she says that these characteristics, and the idea that men are less attractive for having them, are "patriarchal beliefs" stemming from toxic masculinity: "so that's on y'all," she said. "That's on you that you feel like you have to be bigger and stronger to be manly, or whatever it is they believe." <h2>Afualo said she hopes to empower women</h2>Afualo believes she's so popular with women because she's brutal, and doesn't waste her time trying to educate men who should already know better than to broadcast how "misogynistic and bigoted" they seem.Afualo said she grew up with several strong feminist figures in her life, particularly her mom who taught her never to let anyone else determine her worth. Now, when she gets hate comments and trolls telling her she's "fat" or "ugly," it doesn't penetrate her brain "even 1%." She said she hopes to help empower "women of color, black women, fat women, trans women, and everyone in between" to feel the same way, and give them the confidence to stand up for themselves and others."And then love themselves enough to hold out for like the best version of a relationship that they want," she said. "To raise your standards and hold them high. It may take a little time, but someone will definitely reach the bar."

Drew Afualo, TikTok's 'crusader of women,' says she's 'constantly shoveling' misogyny out of the app with her viral takedown videos

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Chappell Roan criticized her fans in her latest TikTok.</li><li>Roan said it is "creepy" that people hassle her in the streets for photos.</li></ul>Overnight pop sensation <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bought-resale-tickets-seatgeek-didnt-work-what-i-learned-2024-6">Chappell Roan</a> took a swing at her fans on Monday — becoming the latest celebrity to speak up about how they are treated in public.On Monday, Roan posted two TikTok videos about the "harassment" and "stalking" that came with her recent jolt of fame. Roan has been making music since 2014. But she hit a new level of fame this year after buzzy performances at festivals like Coachella and Gov Ball.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/chappell-roan-success-story-stats-1235719365/">Billboard</a> reported in June that Roan's weekly streams rose from under 3 million to 68.36 million in the first half of the year.In the TikTok, Roan said: "If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from your car window? Would you harass her in public? Would you go up to a random lady and say, 'Can I take a photo with you?' and she says, 'No, what the fuck?' and then you get mad at this random lady?""Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around? Would you try to dissect her life and bully her online? This is a lady you don't know, and she doesn't know you at all."In the following video, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-songs-this-year-ranked-best-tracks-2023-12#1-red-wine-supernova-by-chappell-roan-20">Roan</a> said none of this was acceptable, even if it's common for celebrities.In recent years, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ariana-grande-fan-concerns-about-her-body-are-overblown-2023-4">Ariana Grande</a>, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/justin-bieber-hailey-baldwin-selena-gomez-fan-jelena-video-response-2020-12">Justin Bieber</a>, SZA, and others have been more vocal about being harassed by fans online or in person.Even Taylor Swift, who is known for building a personal relationship with fans, seemed to target her fan base for trying to control her dating life in her latest album, "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-album-lyrics-criticizing-fans-swifties-2024-4">The Tortured Poets Department</a>."Roan said in the second TikTok video: "I don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity. I don't give a fuck if you think it's selfish of me to say no for a photo or for your time, or for a hug. That's not normal. That's weird. "It's weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online and you listen to the art they make. That's fucking weird! I'm allowed to say no to creepy behavior, OK?"This is also not the first time Roan has been open about the pressures of fame.In July, Roan said during a podcast interview on "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/7w5XYqFMFe1fBemwaFwtm6?go=1&amp;sp_cid=b5daccdacd78ae0b33b158294d07ec8f&amp;fallback=getapp&amp;utm_source=embed_player_v&amp;utm_medium=desktop&amp;nd=1&amp;signupPrompt=1&amp;dlsi=15bfe1189ab0477e">The Comment Section with Drew Afualo</a>" that she promised herself to quit if fans started stalking her or her family was in danger."People have started to be freaks, like follow me and know where my parents live, and where my sister works. All this weird shit," Roan said. "I've like pumped the brakes on honestly anything to make me more known. It's like a forest fire right now."

An overnight pop sensation is the latest celebrity to hit back at her own 'creepy' fans

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Many think TikTok has transformed into a pseudo-shopping channel.</li><li>The criticism reflects a growing resentment about ads for products influencers don't believe in.</li></ul>In a recent TikTok, a content creator expressed some frustrations with her fellow influencers.Manrika Khaira said TikTok used to be a fun place to be, with trends, dynamic discussions with other creators, and hilarious jokes.But it's morphed into a pseudo-shopping channel, she said."I'm seeing some of my favorite creators promoting products that they know don't work or they know don't do what you are saying they do," she said. Khaira's criticism mirrors the feelings of many Gen Zers who are growing tired of seeing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-is-bad-boring-fyp-2024-2">relentless ads on their social media feeds</a>.Another creator named CeeVan said she believes a lot of aspiring influencers aren't putting in the effort that's required."A lot of these people never took the time to build a community to make that community fall in love with you and trust you no matter what," she said.Instead, she added, they want to be influencers "for the brand deals" to get "nice free stuff.""And we see through it now," she said. With the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-moving-abroad-cost-of-living-too-expensive-debt-retirement-2024-4">cost of living</a> skyrocketing, a looming <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/credit-card-debt-interest-rates-consolidation-economy-recession-soft-landing-2024-2">credit card debt crisis</a>, and people having to spend <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/average-cost-monthly-household-bills-change-pandemic-covid-rent-mortgage-2024-3">so much of their income on bills</a>, the resentment may reflect a culture of money anxiety.But people are still willing to spend overall. <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/etf/retail-sales-rises-more-than-expected-in-march-indicate-strong-consumer-spending-1033249173">Retail sales increased</a> 0.7% in March compared to the previous year <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-economy-outlook-inflation-rollercoaster-job-market-wages-prices-blackrock-2024-2">despite prices rising</a> faster than the Federal Reserve's inflation target of 2%.A disillusionment with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-sick-seeing-influencers-extravagant-brand-trips-tarte-bora-2024-3">what influencers are selling</a> may have more to do with their relatability tanking when it used to be something that set them apart.<h2>Deinfluencing and influencer fatigue</h2>Ashley Rector, the founder of creative marketing agency Quimby Digital, told Business Insider this is why <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/deinfluencing-is-the-anti-influencer-trend-rich-with-paradoxes-2023-1">the trend of deinfluencing</a> became so popular last year — influencers who were encouraging their followers not to purchase things.As social media marketing evolved, so did the opportunity for influencers to work with more brands."They accepted deals with brands that weren't aligned, they put up campaigns that were not thought out, and consumers could tell that it wasn't aligned," Rector said."When someone feels like you are selling them for the sake of selling, they inherently lose trust."Samantha Zink, the founder and CEO of the talent management agency Zink Talent, told BI the influencer industry has changed massively since it began in the early noughties.Back then, it was "more about passion than profit," she said, while now content creation is a fully-fledged career with commissions and subscriptions."This shift has made influencer engagements seem less special because what was once a hobby or a passion project is now a necessity to earn a living," she said. "Influencers, some of whom are supporting families, must engage in brand collaborations to sustain themselves."This evolution may mean some don't view influencers as relatable as they once did.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/blog/influencer-fatigue">Research from Meltwater</a>, an online media monitoring company, referred to this perceived lack of authenticity as "influencer fatigue" in 2023.They found social media users wanted "real, unstaged content to engage with"Influencers may be losing their command over Gen Z in particular, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/influencer-fatigue-real-heres-why-195348658.html">Yahoo News reported</a>. Data shared with the outlet from a YPulse study found that 45% of 13 to 22-year-old respondents felt influencers don't have the sway they used to.<div type="image" title="Influencers at the beach" height="1475" width="2033" msid="109501897" hostid="261" sizebytes="205300"></div><h2>The influencing days aren't over</h2>This doesn't mean influencing is over.It's more about the way it's done is evolving, and only creators who understand this will be successful.<a target="_blank" href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report/">A report from Influencer Marketing Hub</a> this year found there was a strong preference from brands to work with small nano- and micro-influencers due to their higher engagement rate and the trust built with their communities.Sophie Wood, the director of strategy at influencer marketing agency Fohr, told BI the influencer bubble hasn't burst, it's just changing. Deinfluencing in itself is influencing, she said, just in a different direction.A decade ago, bloggers were the new, shiny type of celebrity that everyone wanted a piece of. Then the influencer boom happened, YouTube took off, TikTok was created, and now millions of people can be given that label.Smart creators are looking for ways to keep their communities thriving, such as joining platforms such as Substack to give a section of their loyal fans a more intimate look into their lives."Those are people who actually have something different to say," Wood said.Hannah Witton, a YouTuber who has been making content for over a decade, for example, moved away from YouTube last year to Patreon, and many of her subscribers followed.She told BI influencers, like everyone, will change over time. It's hard to be "relatable" to everyone, but the way to keep followers happy is for influencers to continue sharing things authentically, even as their interests change."I think the key is to be honest about changes and take your audience along for the ride," Witton said. "Naturally, some people will fall off, but many will stay, and new people will always come."In these more niche communities, fans are more than happy to see the influencers they love making money and recommending products, Wood said. It's not that ads are bad, she said, you just need to be able to do it well."They're proud of their influencer," she said. "They're like, get your bag. I love this ad. You make the best ads. That is the golden standard."<h2>Viewers don't want to be lied to</h2>Transparency is really important, as some influencers have come under fire recently for not being honest and open about ads — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tiktok-creator-accused-of-lashlighting-beauty-fans-with-allegedly-misleading-review-there-is-no-disputing-that-she-used-fake-lashes-200923394.html">not disclosing that they were paid</a> to promote certain products or trying to hide the disclosure hashtags behind the video's caption."Audiences are very smart and I think they don't want to feel duped," Wood said. "They're going to be like, this influencer thinks I'm dumb to believe this ad when I know that this is not something she would create."Jessica Dante, an influencer and the founder of Love and London, agreed that trust dwindles when viewers see something they perceive as a "money grab."She also believes people focus on "relatability" a little too much, but that people look for honesty and integrity in whatever they watch."Because TikTok has enabled people to go viral for something that maybe isn't authentic or true, this is especially the case," she said. "It's why influencers are often called out when they aren't being truthful or haven't told the whole story."TikTok did not immediately respond to a request by BI for comment.

TikTok has become a pseudo-shopping channel, and Gen Z has had enough

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dylan Mulvaney won the 2023 Streamy Award for Breakout Creator. </li><li>To close her acceptance speech, she said she was "going to go have a beer." </li></ul>After winning an award Sunday night at the 2023 Streamy Awards, Dylan Mulvaney joked that she was "going to go have a beer." Mulvaney took home the award for breakout creator at the Sunday night award ceremony, <a href="https://www.streamys.org/nominees-winners/13th-annual-nominees/">beating out</a> TikTok it girl Alex Earle and Jake Shane — a.k.a. "octopusslover8" on TikTok — as well as Drew Afualo and Keith Lee. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGD8O96c9zE">A "shocked" Mulvaney took the stage after her win was announced</a>, and joked that she always thought the only award that she'd ever win would be "maybe a Tony award," adding "Theater TikTok we made it to the mainstream!" Mulvaney then pointed out that 532 days ago, she posted "a coming out video that turned into my Days of Girlhood series and my life has been changed for the better." "But, on the flip side," she continued, "there's also been an extreme amount of transphobia and hate and I know that my community is feeling it and I now know that even our allies are feeling it." She then called on allies to "support trans people publicly and proudly." "I think the trans community and the creator community actually have something in common and it's that people often underestimate us," Mulvaney declared, adding that "we can stay optimistic about just the future of transness in general because if we can influence people to buy $22 Erewhon smoothies, we can also do this." To close her acceptance speech, Mulvaney thanked her fans and said she loved them, then quipped "I'm going to go have a beer," an apparent reference to her <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-transgender-controversy-backlash-boycotts-history">Bud Light Instagram post that sparked conservative protests against the brand</a> and hatred against her.Mulvaney, who has over 12 million followers across her TikTok and Instagram, was swept up in the backlash after she posted a Bud Light promotion on her Instagram back in April. Conservative critics called for a boycott of the Bud Light brand, and LGBTQ+ advocates <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anheuser-busch-loses-lgbtq-equality-rating-from-human-rights-campaign-2023-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">called on Bud Light</a> to make clear its support for the LGBTQ+ community.Mulvaney, who initially remained quiet on her platforms about the controversy, previously said that Bud Light's parent company <a href="https://www.insider.com/dylan-mulvaney-bud-light-never-reached-out-transgender-backlash-2023-6?_gl=1*r82h1o*_ga*MTg1MTAxNTMwNi4xNjc4MTk3Njg1*_ga_E21CV80ZCZ*MTY5MzIzMzQxOS4zMjMuMS4xNjkzMjM2ODQ2LjU1LjAuMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">never reached out during the uproar</a>. The Bud Light controversy may be dying down: Bud Light sales <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-modelo-america-best-selling-beer-conservative-boycott-2023-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">took a hit</a> in the months following the April post, but are now showing signs of a rebound.

Dylan Mulvaney &mdash; whose Bud Light promotion led to conservative protests &mdash; cracked a beer joke after winning a Streamy Award

<ul class="summary-list"><li>'Rage-baiting' has been an effective way to grow engagement since the days of pundit cable news.</li><li>On TikTok, creators say it's been on a steady rise because it's the most effective way to go viral.</li></ul>For about a year, barista and TikToker Ryan Gawlik has been intentionally pissing people off with his coffee content.In TikTok videos, Gawlik will wrongly call espresso "expresso," or mercilessly bite into a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@coffeefanatics/video/7168907127560424746?_r=1&amp;_t=8XZqS1Tq9CI&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;item_id=7168907127560424746">whole KitKat bar</a> because he knows it will incense an internet that <a href="https://www.insider.com/worst-way-to-eat-kit-kat-bar-2018-6">finds this kind of behavior viscerally upsetting. </a>It's been mostly harmless—but it's also become a kind of proven growth hack to sustain his career. Since he started posting incendiary content—posts intended to get people a little riled up, or ignite in-fighting in the comments, engagement has increased fivefold, he told Insider. He's also gained more than 350,000 followers (he currently has 1.2 million). And he can feel a bit more secure about a career on social media. Gawlik is among a growing number of creators on TikTok who incite rage, both low stakes and high, to get views. Some call it rage-farming or rage-baiting — whatever the name, it's been used since the early days of social platforms to keep users clicking. Social media anthropologists say it's a tried-and-true technique to grow followers in an attention-based economy where generating engagement, positive or negative, is lucrative digital currency.But the quiet wrestling match for follower engagement has only grown more contentious in recent months. Insider spoke with seven creators who are a part of TikTok's new revenue-sharing program <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-pulse-ad-revenue-share-payments-creators-2022-11">Pulse</a>, which rewards "the top 4%" of all qualifying videos with half the revenue generated from in-feed ad placements. All seven said they've noticed more rage-baiting on their timelines than ever before. With <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktokers-say-low-creator-fund-pay-affecting-their-mental-health-2022-7">low payouts</a> from TikTok's Creator Fund, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-influencers-are-prepping-for-recession-economic-downturn-2022-11">a looming recession</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tiktokers-are-struggling-to-make-money-connect-with-followers-2022-8">struggling to sustain growth,</a> creators are amping up rage-baiting to get more eyeballs on their content. It's become, as one creator put it, "a race to the bottom."<h2>For TikTokers, clicks are currency, and it doesn't matter how they get them <div type="image" title="A TikToker angering viewers for making fun of how Gen Z makes coffee" height="550" width="775" msid="96084739" hostid="261" sizebytes="29470"></div></h2>For as long as cable news punditry has been around, people have weaponized anger to captivate audiences. Social media allowed that anger to become a boundless and flourishing force that's wormed its way into nearly every aspect of our lives. We're mad…about everything…all the time. As writer Molly Jong-Fast noted in <a href="https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/wait-what/61df26769a2cf50020163abc/owning-the-libs-is-the-only-gop-platform/">The Atlantic</a> earlier this year, "Rage farming is the product of a perfect storm of fuckery, an unholy mélange of algorithms and anxiety." Social media platforms don't care if the message is uplifting or toxic. As long as people are interacting with it, platforms will spread it even further.The creators Insider spoke with called out far-right political provocateurs and commentators Ben Shapiro, Brett Cooper, a conservative talking head for The Daily Wire with her own <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@brettcooper_?_t=8XnlcYJ8ryU&amp;_r=1">TikTok channel</a>, and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@the_dadvocate?lang=en">@the_dadvocate</a>, an account run by a woman who advocates for men's rights, as rage-baiters.But they also referred to several progressive-minded Tiktokers as rage-baiters, including <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adeonibada/aunt-karen-tiktok-social-justice-anti-racist">Aunt Karen</a>, who's dedicated her account to calling out and identifying racist behavior, and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rx0rcist?lang=en">RX0rcist</a>, a professional pharmacist who calls out users who she believes are sharing unsound medical advice.While many of these creators have built flourishing social media careers fanning fury on social injustices or wokeness (each holding a million or several million followers), not everyone is willing to admit that it's an effective growth strategy.Most of the named creators disputed the idea that they rage-farm. Shapiro told Insider he wasn't familiar with the term or the practice."I only post material I believe," he said in an email statement. "If people are angered by it, that's their prerogative." Lauren, who's known as @the_dadvocate to her 1.3 million followers, doesn't believe she rage-farms in her TikToks because she says she sincerely stands by every point she makes."No, I do not rage-bait, but I'm familiar with the accusation," she told Insider. "For the accusation to be true, it relies on the creator to be disingenuous and to not actually believe in the things they talk about, and I do."Lauren added that her videos — some of which include pointing out <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@the_dadvocate/video/7131069440870878510?is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;lang=en">"partner shaming"</a> against men and<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@the_dadvocate/video/7145852968888306990?is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;lang=en"> the high standards men are held to</a> — are meant to make people uncomfortable. But she thinks taking pointed positions on contentious inter-gender issues is bringing people together, not further dividing them."I get messages all the time from men telling me I inspire them to be better partners to their wives, from wives telling me I'm helping them understand their husbands," she said. "There are far more factors to my motivation than just making people mad and making myself money."For Aunt Karen, whose real name is Denise Bradley, and Savannah Sparks, the woman behind RX0rcist, their relationship to rage-farming is more complicated. They both unequivocally deny doing it, but also say that anger is a necessary weapon for fighting medical misinformation and racial inequities online. "Many people believe that my content is rage-baiting simply because they're uncomfortable with the reality Black people and other people of color face in this world," Bradley told Insider. "I believe in order to push for change, we must see the world as it is. I don't believe in sugarcoating issues … so if people feel that I'm rage-baiting, you should ask yourself: 'what is she trying to get us to see?'"Sparks told Insider that she doesn't see her impassioned reactions to misinformation and shoddy science as rage-baiting. Moreover, if it is, so what? She's trying to do right in this world, she believes. "Reporting on science, misinformation, and crimes isn't rage-baiting … Rage-baiting is deliberate manipulation," she said. "I tell the truth and, as [fellow TikToker] Drew Afualo eloquently put it, I never said I was nice."<h2>When purposely making mistakes lands you views<div type="image" title="TikToker Ryan Gawlik biting into a whole KitKat bar in a video about Mariah Carey" height="550" width="775" msid="96084740" hostid="261" sizebytes="39512"></div></h2>Ryan Gawlik, however, is candid, and in moments, unashamed, about being an internet farmhand who harvests rage. That may be because his content is lower-stakes than the others. "If it was an apple pie, I would say a pumpkin tart or something like that, something really silly. And I would put in the title wrong, and I would put in the hashtags, or reacting to things, wrong," he said.Gawlik started doing this when he experienced two major challenges almost all creators face at some point: his follower growth started to flatline, and people began trolling him for getting things wrong — at first, inadvertently. Gawlik said he experienced harassment in 2021 over a matcha tutorial he posted where <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@coffeefanatics/video/7039102352481307950?is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;lang=en">he forgot to include a step</a> to pre-wet the whisk. People called him culturally insensitive, and some even showed up to his workplace to shame him for it. (Gawlik told Insider he actually did pre-wet the whisk when he was making the video but decided not to include the footage in the final cut because the audio was bad.)In any case, he learned quickly the impossibly high standards people are held to on the internet: Gawlik was commiserating with his other creator friends when they suggested that he plant his own careless mistakes in his videos. Hey, if commenters will call you out when you're not trying to make mistakes, why not take control of that paradigm, they suggested?"I think having that ability to understand that if you purposely make yourself vulnerable, you can create a situation where you control the hate in a sense," he said. His creator friends were right. He saw his videos garner more comments, which only made them more attractive to be featured on the FYP more often, and soon his followers grew. He even began A/B testing his content: he'd post one video where he didn't plant a silly mistake or detonate<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@coffeefanatics/video/6984881487707409670?_r=1&amp;_t=8XZWAE7uJh8&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;item_id=6984881487707409670"> a fiery take</a> to make a point, and one that was more straightforward, and he noticed that the ones that compelled a heated response from viewers saw at least three to five times more reach and comments. "I had one situation where people corrected me so much, it got to, I think, 5 million views and just out of that silly little thing," Gawlik said.<h2>Anger permeates faster, and more powerfully, on social media. And that's backed by data. <div type="image" title="Conservative commentator Brett Cooper posting a TikTok about why she's a Republican" height="550" width="775" msid="96084741" hostid="261" sizebytes="33750"></div></h2>His test has been backed by research. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-social-media-emotions-go-viral-anger-spreads-fastest-4b11186087">Researchers from Beihang University in China</a> in 2013 found that Weibo users shared disgust and righteous indignation more often than content that elicited emotions like joy and sadness.Experts told Insider that creators are incentivized to play into these emotional apparatuses because it's what the public and big social media tech companies want. "The goal of social media platforms is to keep people engaged for as long as possible," Yotam Ophir, a professor at the University of Buffalo who studies misinformation and extremism, said. "Ironically enough, it doesn't really matter if this attention is positive or negative ... it doesn't matter to them if we enjoy the video or we get angry at it, as long as we're staying, listening, commenting, and sharing it with our friends."It's also why algorithms on TikTok and YouTube may feed you conservative-leaning videos even if you've engaged more with left-leaning ones. It benefits the platforms to give you what you want and what you don't want.Ophir believes it's a fair practice if creators are harnessing rage or manipulating engagement in small ways to keep up with the online economy. He pointed to the phrase "if you disagree with me, let me know in the comments," as a benign and common way that creators do this every day. Where we need to be more conscientious about creators doing this is when it starts to seed conspiracy and extremism. "If you think of online provocateurs, like Ben Shapiro, when he writes something offensive on Twitter, he knows that he's going to get engagement from his supporters, but also from people who resist him. Some of them will retweet him to criticize them, some of them will go into the comment section to fight back," Ophir said. "It's often the case that the most provocative, emotional, outrageous, sensational stuff is what keeps us engaged. That's just a sad reality. Often, that kind of stuff that keeps us engaged is also racist and hateful and misinformed and conspiratorial in nature."And in a worst-case scenario, rage-baiting jumps off of the screen and <a href="https://people.com/crime/local-facebook-celebrity-killed-while-on-live-stream-after-argument-with-commenters/">into the real world</a>.<h2>Why incensed TikToks may be on the rise recently<div type="image" title="TikTokers The Dadvocate and Rx0rcist responding and shouting back at commenters who attack their ideals." height="550" width="775" msid="96084742" hostid="261" sizebytes="39656"></div></h2>From petty instances to politically treacherous ones, several TikTokers say there's been a steady increase in rage-baiting in recent months. Cecelia Gray (@ceceliaisgray), who riffs on pop culture to more than a quarter of a million followers on TikTok, has a few theories as to why. "There has been a little bit of an uptick recently," Gray said. "I think it's a combination of a recent change to how TikTok was going to be looking at our videos on the backend for recommendation, and they started prioritizing people who understand and utilize SEO a little bit."Insider has reached out to TikTok for comment.Gray says competition to be in the Pulse program is also driving rage-baiting. "The uptick sort of started when people stopped seeing that instant gratification. And now that we know Pulse exists and we are all enrolling in it, there has been sort of a steady incline of people saying, 'Well, I have to be the most viral.'"Nikki Apostolou, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@recycldstardust?lang=en">a TikToker </a>who speaks about body positivity and indigenous issues, has also noticed more negatively-driven videos on her FYP over the last month."I noticed there was more aggression overall. Across all topics. many began to start out with something negative over positive," she told Insider. Apostolou herself is feeling the pressure to comply. "If I do a video on cultural appropriation or anything where I start it off telling people they can't do something…that video will usually get a lot of views because of the arguments it starts," she continued. "Content doesn't seem to be geared towards positive discussion anymore. There's a lot of shift to shock value. That's what gets views. That's what gets pushed, so people repeat that formula."Creators want TikTok to better regulate rage-farming videos, particularly the ones that are conspiratorial or categorically spread disinformation. Danielle Kramer, a clinical sexologist who also posts <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@inbedwithdanielle">sex education videos on TikTok</a>, said the platform should employ human moderators to step in when a rageful video becomes endangering to people's health and safety. She also recommends that it verify users are at least 18 years old.Ophir, however, does not have a lot of hope that social media companies will take responsibility because they financially profit from this practice. He instead advises people to hold government officials accountable — to write to them so they can write bylaws that can put safer guardrails in place. And, as the internet adage goes, he encourages people not to feed the trolls."People should understand that it's not that Elon Musk is just provocative and enjoys it. He actually does it because it's a financially viable strategy for him," he said."They should be willing to say, 'I'm not playing along with this. I'm not responding to any of that.'"

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Dylan Mulvaney whose Bud Light promotion led to conservative protests — cracked a beer joke after winning a Streamy Award