I honestly think that the independent TikTok/YouTube/newsletter economy presents some of the most perverse incentives imaginable for the people doing that work, and it either encourages them to be their worst selves and/or rewards people who get worse! Not everyone does that, but it's so lucrative!
I was just thinking this about the crew for Ethan Klein and how they’re essentially enabling his behavior now. It’s wild how rage bait can be someone’s source of income
Yeah, my brain has seriously been a little melted by the fact that "do something cool and then get attention for it" has been largely replaced as an ethos by "get as much attention as you can and then monetize that attention by any means necessary."
TikTok especially has perpetuated this by punishing those in the creator fund for not posting 3 or more times a day and not getting engagement. I went viral twice and when I learned the game of “make people angry, go viral” I was out
You have to appeal to either “oh someone is going to hate this” or “oh someone evil is going to love this”