In 2022, fifty years after I graduated from Lake Havasu High School, I was one of the recipients of its Distinguished Alumni awards. We had moved to Oregon from Lake Havasu City the previous fall, and I was still caring for my elderly mother, so I wasn’t able to return to Havasu and attend that year’s graduation ceremony where they handed out the awards.

However, I wrote a speech, which was delivered for me by someone who happened to be one of my teachers during my senior year of high school. I wanted to share one passage from my speech which I believe summarizes the topic of this post. 

It read: Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.

We will come back to that passage in a minute. But first, I want to discuss social media.

With the possible TikTok ban looming and Meta’s decision to roll back any controls on hate speech in the name of free speech, social media has been a topic in many people’s minds.

I started regularly using the internet back in 1991. Seven years later Google Search came on the scene and five years later Google introduced AdSense ads which gave content providers a way to generate passive income on their websites. It’s something I did for a number of years.     

There were other ways for content providers to earn passive income, such as eHow, established in 1999. There, you could write your own ‘how to’ articles and receive a share of the ad revenues each month. Other similar platforms popped up.

Four years after eHow made its debut came MySpace, followed by a social media explosion. While MySpace wasn’t the first social media platform, it’s what many of us older folks tend to remember.

For a social media platform to be profitable, they need users. After all, who wants to advertise on a platform without users? One way to lure users to a site is to provide content. One way to provide content is to incentivize its users to provide content. You know, like those cute cat videos. One way is to allow users to monetize their content.

Of course, a platform can’t pay all its users. That rather defeats the purpose. That would be like paying all your customers to come eat at your restaurant. But you might pay some to eat at your restaurant if they also provide a service that attracts more customers. Maybe they play the piano or can sing.

On many social media programs, when accepted into their creator program, how much they pay depends on the number of your views—and the number of engagements. If one of your videos gets a couple million views and a thousand comments, you might get a nice paycheck that month.

On social media, many content creators have discovered an easy way to make money, providing they are careful and walk a fine line—because this might also get them banned from the platform. Yet, considering how much I see it on social media, I don’t think the line is all that fine.

What am I talking about? Simple. Rage baiting. Hate is profitable, it seems.

For example, over on TikTok some supposedly conservative white woman made a video accusing liberal women of threating to come to the south and beating conservative women for not voting blue. She phrased this like it was a big thing. Us liberal women were all plotting to take some road trip so we could kick some lady conservatives’ butts. Um…that was NOT a thing.

Maybe it was not a thing, but wow, did it blow up! Liberals commented about how no one was coming to attack them. Others pointed out it sounded a little too close to a racist white woman trying to stir up racial tension since liberal women in the south might more likely be black. And then we had the conservative men posting about protecting their women, or claiming their women could easily kick a lib chick’s butt. And so on.

People made stitches, and the entire trend went on for a while. Someone was making money. All on hate. All on fostering division. The videos got hundreds of comments from both sides.

That is just one example. But there are countless videos and posts where someone says something ignorant or insulting about another group, which ends up giving them views, comments, and a fat payday.

However, I wonder how much of the hate and triggering content stems from that creator’s true beliefs—or is he or she simply making content that brings in a monetary return? Profiting on hate.

While I am sure some of the ugly comments and videos reflect the creator’s true beliefs, I’m just as certain many come from an entirely different place—What can I say that will really rile up people and get them to comment?

Either way, I find it disturbing.

Now I’m going to return to that passage I shared from my acceptance speech. Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.

I am seventy now, and I continue to hold on to the belief I expressed in that passage. People whose prime focus is to build wealth, with no consideration to their fellow human, never achieve true happiness. Happy people tend to spread happiness. Just as miserable people tend to spread misery.

To say there is division in our country is a gross understatement. I think one thing I find so troubling with our current president elect is his propensity to call others nasty names. He’s normalized it, and if I was raising small children today, it is certainly not a trait I would want my children to pick up.

We have these devastating fires in California and some people are so quick to spread lies and hate, turning this into something political. My cousin lost his home in this fire. One of our close friends, their niece lost her home, and one of our longtime friends told our daughter several of her friends lost their homes. My point being—this thing touches close to home. And while some may not see this as ‘touching close to home’ from their perspective, and not warranting any of their empathy, I certainly don’t understand the hate, lies, and counterproductive rhetoric they choose to heap on the victims of these fires.  

Aside from the profit motive of pushing hate speech in social media, I can’t wrap my head around the fact some people out there really get their jollies seeing someone else suffer emotionally or physically. It’s often someone they have never met before, but maybe the person differs from them, or they are jealous of what that person has. I am seeing more and more people in power and government fostering this type of behavior.

A number of years ago, I received a Facebook message from a girl I knew in junior high. I will confess, I didn’t remember the girl. It had nothing to do with the girl. I just have a crappy memory. Apparently, she had gone to one of my birthday parties I had when we still lived in Covina the year before moving to Havasu. Back then, we lived in what was considered one of the nicest areas of Covina, California, in Covina Hills. I didn’t live in a track home; it was a custom home my father had built and designed. She in turned lived in an apartment in a modest part of town.

The party was a boy-girl party, and when the boys went home, it was a slumber party for the girls. By the tone of the letter, I felt the girl believed we were in some way ‘wealthy’ and she expressed how much she appreciated how nice and welcoming we were to her, even mentioning my mother.

It was such a sweet letter, and I immediately shared it with Mom. I can’t adequately explain how it made us feel—knowing we had left this girl with what was obviously a lasting memory—a positive memory.

I can’t say I was always such a nice kid. In fact, I cringe at many things I’ve done over my lifetime. I only hope when engaging in those cringe worthy behaviors I didn’t leave behind some unpleasant memory for other people to deal with.

Today, with each email or post I receive from one of my readers, telling me how my books helped them during a difficult time, or simply how much they enjoy them, or how my characters seem like old friends, it reaffirms my belief I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Providing comfort, company, entertainment, and laughter is far more fulfilling than making someone feel ugly.  

4 comments on “Rage Baiting. Hate is profitable.

  1. JOY CHERRY

    This is all so true. I never realised payment was made for the posts.
    I fear for our children also. I have always been in awe of USA and wanted to visit its many wonderful and historic places, but now, I never will. The disappointment that the people have elected such a poisonous and self serving man to rule their country and their lives worries and terrifies me. The hate that spills out of him…what hope do we have for our children when that is the example they see every day.

    1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

      I was stunned when they said he won. It wasn’t about losing an election. It was the fact so many Americans had voted for someone like him.

      To best describe the feeling—imagine you are a parent of a child who you love and you’re proud of. But then you discover your child vandalized the school and has no remorse. It’s that overwhelming sense of disappointment in someone, someone you care about. That someone for me was my fellow Americans who voted for him.

      My mother had died about twelve days before the election. I was still processing my grief. Then came the election results, and I felt another loss—the loss of my faith in fellow Americans.

      But after the initial shock, I took a step back and considered life and my belief system. I believe our spirits—or souls—come here to learn lessons, lessons which we take with us when we move on. Like my mother moved on in her journey.

      Somewhere in the back of my mind, while trying to process the outcome of this election, I kept hearing, “It is not your lesson to learn.”

      So, for me, I will keep faith that it will ultimately work out as it should—with lessons learned. I’ll try to live my best life, be kind to others, treat fellow humans with dignity, and be an ally to marginalized groups. And I will continue to periodically get up on my soap box and rant.

      1. Janine van Rooij

        Lots of people in Western Europe don’t get it either, that he won. I mean, he is proven guilty of several criminal offenses and tried to start a violent uprising that day he let so many citizens, some of whom carried fire arms, into the White House. Why do his voters vote for a criminal and a person who clearly wants to end democracy and destroy the constitution of the USA. What is his hold on these people?

        1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

          A lot of people in the US are also asking that. I have several theories.

          First, I don’t believe all Trump voters fall into the same bucket.

          One group I will call the Trump fans. When I was a teenager, I was never one to hang posters of celebrities on my bedroom wall. I didn’t swoon over rock stars or jump up and down during a concert. I don’t mean to insult those that do, but personally, it is not my thing.

          I am also not a reality show watcher. I never watched the Apprentice, but it was on TV for 14 seasons. That means he had a lot of fans. People loved him, and they bought the pitch that he was this savvy businessman.

          I worked with a lady who loved the show, and she tried to get on it. She idolized Trump back when he had his show. Today she is a Trump supporter.

          When he moved into politics, many of those fans overlooked the things he did that would have destroyed other candidates. They made excuses for him. They still do. That’s what people do for their idols.

          Then we have the Deplorable group that Hillary talked about. They are the overt racists and sexists like the dudes who wear white sheets, or like to tell women “Your body, our choice.” Trump gives them the permission to come out of the closet of hate.

          Then we have the Heritage bunch. I don’t believe for a minute the higher ups believe Trump is sent from God, aside from being a tool they can manipulate to get what they want. I don’t believe Vance suddenly changed his opinion on Trump. He is simply waiting for Trump to get out of the way so he can become president.

          And then we have the folks who are not paying attention. It’s not that they are ignorant or naïve, but when people are struggling just to support their family, paying attention to politics is not on their to do list. If things are going poorly they may think simply changing the president might improve things.

          And some people simply hate Democrats and believe liberals are these terrible people who want to indoctrinate their children, not realizing most on the left simply want everyone to live their own lives, have good health care, and enough food to eat.

          A reason many don’t care about him being an adjudicated rapist or felon is because they seriously don’t believe it. They have convinced themselves that he has been set up, and when someone shows them the evidence, they stick their fingers in their ears, close their eyes and shout, LALALALALA

          It is exhausting.

          Oh, one more thing…Elon Musk. Being the richest man in the world he used his money to buy a presidency. I don’t believe Trump would have been elected had Elon not supported Trump. They did a lot of suspect stuff with that money, like sending out Harris pro-Israel pamphlets to voters supporting Gaza and then sending out anti-Isreal pamphlets to groups supporting Israel.

          And let’s not forget, Elon boasted about being Dark MAGA, while wearing a Black Hat. He is a tech bro.

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