Shadowing Practice: what happened to critical thinking? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This video is brought to you by Squarespace, an all -in -one platform for building your brand and growing your business online.
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I don't know if you guys have heard, but it's embarrassing to have a boyfriend, and also none of Gen Z goes on dates,
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and also partying is dead, and also everybody is Wajian.
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Okay, have I got your attention?
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Every couple of months, an article with a click -baity headline
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that uses the royal we or makes some overarching claim about modern culture completely divides the internet, or at least my side of the internet.
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Last fall, though, got readers riled up with their article is having a boyfriend embarrassing now.
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A few years before that, Vulture's Nepo Baby article ruffled some celebrity feathers.
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And most recently, Vulture's Weijin Generation article frustrated a lot of people online.
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New York Mag just put out this article, and I have a lot of thoughts.
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And after reading it, I do understand why people are upset.
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Mainly because it primarily featured part white, mixed East Asians in the accompanying main image.
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Let's pause for a second
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and talk about the Weisian Generation article since it's the most recent one at the time of filming this video.
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And I'll admit, when you look at the Weisian Generation cover in isolation,
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it paints a kind of homogenous picture of famous mixed Asians by grouping all these mugshot -like images together,
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inviting us to compare and contrast their features in a fetishistic way.
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The vaguely positive title also implies that we are celebrating this demographic, which of course implies the question, why aren't we celebrating more marginalized Asian identities.
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But if you actually read the article, which is unfortunately behind a paywall,
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so there's also that, it does acknowledge the different skews of mixed Asian identities
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and some of the exclusionary Eurocentric aspects of the current Waysian craze.
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It's not overly fawning, it's just spotlighting a specific demographic of people who have become a Hollywood marketing trend lately
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and examining them in a more neutral framework.
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It's not a perfect article by any means, but it's definitely not saying that Waysians are superior,
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which is what I feel a lot of early reactors is gleaned just from looking at the title and the image.
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And that's the case most of the time.
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I would say
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that many of these viral articles are actually more nuanced than their provocative title suggests once you read past the headline.
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The issue is, whether for structural reasons, no subscription, or for personal reasons, laziness, most people don't seem to do that.
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One study from Penn State found that out of 35 million public posts shared between 2017 and 2020,
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about 75 % of shares were made without the poster clicking the link first.
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Political content was also more often shared without clicking the link than politically neutral content, which is scary.
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And since so many headlines are engineered to get a strong reaction out of people using clickbait tactics,
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some people may feel compelled to act on the feelings the headline is arousing in them before
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they even fully know what the article is about.
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Another study shows that people prefer simple headlines over complex ones,
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which may encourage editors to oversimplify their story in the headline to get people to click.
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In all actuality, titing an article is having a boyfriend embarrassing is going to
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get more clicks than there are some influencers who are choosing not to post their boyfriends online.
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What a mouthful.
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While these headlines feel very late stage capitalism slash TikTok attention span coded,
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framing headlines in eye -catching ways has always been a key aspect of journalism for decades and decades now.
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But let's keep the conversation online for a little bit longer.
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because I think they make website designing so easy and friendly for everyone, not just coders.
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You can literally make any kind of website you want.
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They have all these different templates to suit your needs, whether that be a store, a portfolio, whatever you'd like.
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But let's pause on store for a second
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because you can easily open your own store on Squarespace to sell anything from physical products to memberships.
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And like any good online store, you can drive sales and engage your audience via Squarespace email campaigns.
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By collecting email subscribers, you can introduce your brand with welcome emails, announce upcoming sales, or send your top customers a discount code.
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One of the early pioneers of clickbait was of course, Buzzfeed, a media company founded in 2006
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In Traffic Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Beating Heart of the New Internet,
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author Ben Smith explains that BuzzFeed started as a website with an RSS feed that crawled blogs, news sites, and aggregators like
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Dig and Reddit to identify popular links and group them together as trends, showcasing what was buzzy online.
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The site later transitioned into publishing articles about trending topics, often relying on curiosity gap headlines, a tactic pioneered by Eli Parsier,
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founder of BuzzFeed competitor Upworthy.
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These headlines withheld a certain amount of information so that people would be intrigued to click and learn more, such as the case with headlines like,
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Disneyland's 1965 employee handbook was just as strict as you'd imagine, and my boyfriend's friend told me something I can't get out of my head.
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Should I be concerned?
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But today, clickbait has given way to ragebait, or content intentionally designed to make people angry.
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Stanford communication professor
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Angel Kristen explains that clickbait involves framing a headline in a way
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that titillates the reader's imagination while still preserving a kernel of truth about the article. In contrast,
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ragebait is designed with the explicit intention of enraging people so
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that they'll engage with the content by commenting angrily or sharing it with others.
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Ragebait is traditionally associated with internet trolls active on social media platforms.
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But these days, it feels like legacy publications are leaning in as well.
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Take, for instance, the New York Times, which published an opinion piece by Ezra Klein last year titled,
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Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way, following Kirk's assassination.
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Part of why rage -inducing headlines like this are so effective is
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because they pull viewers out of a state of passive consumption.
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I've definitely gotten to the habit of just like auto -scrolling on Instagram and TikTok.
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So rage bait shakes me or shakes us out of the doldrums,
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bringing emotion and thus more attention to a piece of content that would otherwise blend into everything else on our feeds.
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Marketer Andrea Jones tells the BBC that viewers are more likely to interact with content
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that makes them upset than content that makes them feel happy or neutral.
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And when the upsetting content inevitably receives more engagement, social media algorithms boost it even more on people's feeds.
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She explains, if we see a cat, we're like, oh, that's cute and scroll on.
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But if we see something doing something obscene, we may type in the comments, this is terrible.
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And that sort of comment is seen as higher quality engagement by the algorithm.
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Researchers also found in 2022 that on Twitter and Weibo, increasing anger -inducing content by just 1 % generates nearly six more retweets.
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Anger incentivizes us to share and repost to mitigate our anxieties.
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Not only does the poster like to rage bait, but we the commenters like rage bait too, or we subconsciously like it.
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I find that a lot of people like to participate in discourse
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because there is validation when you leave an angry comment and then a bunch of people like your comment.
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It ultimately is a form of human connection, even if we're also experiencing a negative emotional reaction at the same time.
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Social media has also become more of like this TV watching landscape rather than a social platform.
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Like I feel that nowadays it's only people who can
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or who want to monetize content who are broadcasting their show and everyone else is just watching their broadcasts.
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This differs from the early days of Instagram and Facebook when people posted photos only to share with their friends.
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So because of the way social media has shifted, the everyday person clings to these comment sections as a place where connection can still thrive.
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Humans are always seeking connection.
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We have a natural drive to create shared identity to the point where we'll create one out of nothing.
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Max Fisher describes in his book
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The Chaos Machine an example of this.
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In one experiment, researchers assigned volunteers one of two labels by a simple coin toss, then had them play a game.
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Each showed greater generosity to others with the same label, even though they knew the division was meaningless.
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The same behavior was emerged in dozens of experiments and real -world situations.
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During lunch breaks on the set of the 1968 movie
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Planet of the Apes, for instance, extras spontaneously separated into tables according to whether they played chimpanzees or gorillas.
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For years afterward, Charlton Heston, the film's star, recounted the instinctive segregation as quite spooky.
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Therefore, discourse is just another avenue for us to uphold an us versus them mentality.
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Outside of headlines, content creators often sneakily weave rage bait into their short form video content to increase engagement.
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Oftentimes, this type of rage bait isn't outright immoral or offensive, but simply annoying or excessive in some subtle way,
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spurring people to comment on how tone -deaf or irritating the creator is.
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For example, food influencer Nara Smith makes painstaking meals from scratch in these over -the -top outfits.
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Fitness influencer Ashton Hall documents his 4 a .m ice bath morning routines.
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And lifestyle influencer Audrey Peters does a series in which she door dashes every meal, including coffee to her house.
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When you look at any of these things objectively, none of them are like cancelable offenses.
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As far as I know, none of these people have committed crimes.
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They aren't campaigning for evil politicians.
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They haven't said anything actually crazy.
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But that actually is why we end up commenting.
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Commenting or making a think piece on behavior
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that is just annoying scratches just the right itch of anger
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where it feels like our voices are able to make a difference in the world because the other thing,
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calling your senator about something actually important just leads you straight to voicemail.
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But the gag is that a lot of these rage baiters are fully aware of what they're doing and in fact,
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they hope you fall for it.
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Audrey Peters explains that when she started her DoorDash series, people started calling her manager concerned about all the negative attention she was receiving,
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to which she said, Nope, this is exactly what I wanted.
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I doordash almost every single meal, almost every single day because I'm lazy, I hate cooking, and because I can.
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So this is everything I deliver to myself in a day with all the receipts
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and pricing because I'd be really nosy too.
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Writer Rebecca Jennings explains
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that Peters' Doordash series is greater than a one -off viral hit as it's an easily repeatable gimmick
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that she can serialize for guaranteed views even if most of the views aren't necessarily Peters' fans.
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Cheers!
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It's so unnecessary and wasteful and gluttonous.
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Like, that video just pissed me off.
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Whatever these influencers are doing, though, doesn't really compare to the final boss of Rage Bait, which is that of fake,
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sensationalized political news and images made possible on platforms, of course, like Elon Musk's X,
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which have more lax rules about misinformation and won't demonetize or suspend profiles that post misinformation.
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For example, in 2024, BBC identified dozens of accounts earning thousands of dollars by sharing content about election misinformation,
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unfounded conspiracy theories, and AI -generated imagery.
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Some of the AI -generated content on X is obviously satirical, like images of Trump dodging bullets like a character in The Matrix,
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but other more realistic -looking fake images like
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Trump being chased by the police or people suffering in the aftermath of natural disasters are harder to discern,
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especially if you're an internet novice like a child or an elderly person.
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But even then, I grew up on the internet and
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that one AI video of the bunnies bouncing on the trampoline got me.
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He lied.
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He deceived me.
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He played with emotion.
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Romance.
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Whether these posters are intentionally trying to deceive users seems besides
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the point as people are only able to distinguish between AI -generated
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and human -authored content 51 % of the time on average.
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That is terrifying.
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Whether or not they take the rage bait is as good as a coin toss.
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But outside of the slop, that doesn't explain why so many people are getting mad at human -made content that is obviously designed to hook them,
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like saucy headlines from The Cut or Vulture.
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Even though it's changed in form over time, as I said, clickbait and rage bait aren't entirely new concepts.
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We've been exposed to these types of things for a while now.
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In his book, The Attention Merchants, Tim Wu describes penny papers of the 1830s as being an early form of mass media
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that sensationalized the news to gain traction.
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Penny papers were called that because they sold for a single penny.
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But of course, it takes more than a penny to make a newspaper, even in those times.
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So penny papers relied on, ding, ding, ding, advertising money to be profitable.
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But for advertisers to think it was worth it, That meant having to guarantee eyeballs.
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James Gordon Bennett, who founded the penny paper
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The Morning Herald, established a specialty in violent crime coverage to get these eyeballs.
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In its first two weeks, the Herald reported on three suicides, three murders, a fire that killed five persons,
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an accident in which a man blew off his head, descriptions of a guillotine execution in France,
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a riot in Philadelphia, and the execution of Major John Andre half a century earlier.
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This is a bummer, man.
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That's a bummer.
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Wu describes Bennett as the media's first bonafide troll, as the man was also known for hurling below -the -belt insults and starting fights,
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all in the name of gaining attention for his paper.
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But even just 10 to 15 years ago, clickbait continued to go strong, with satirical magazines like
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The Onion and Reductress in their prime.
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I'd also say that during this period of the internet, everyone seemed to understand that these publications were satire.
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Of course, not everyone could tell, hence the birth of a subreddit called r slash ate the onion,
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where posters clown people who take the onion article seriously or fall for rage bait more generally.
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But I don't know.
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It's just like, again, this could be my experience, but I've been seeing less and less people understanding satire or even sarcasm on the internet lately,
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which has led me to wonder if this is just a symptom of a larger media literacy crisis.
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I mean, studies do show that literacy rates more generally are slipping as reading scores for high 1992,
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having peaked in the middle of the last decade.
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Plus, studies also show a general decline in reading for pleasure, indicating that reading comprehension may generally be rusty.
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But media literacy isn't just literacy rates and comprehension skills.
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It's being able to discern bias in a publication.
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And that discernment can only come from being familiar enough with the publication you're getting the news from.
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Unfortunately, with how these headlines are circulating on social media platforms now, it's hard to develop that familiarity.
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I think the difference now, though, is like 10, 20 years ago, if I said the cut or I said like the New York Post,
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you would know what that stood for.
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So you would get the wink in the way that they labeled stuff.
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And now like these institutions, just they're all commodified on the same platforms, like you said, on YouTube or Instagram, whatever.
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So people are coming across the information without knowing what the source stands for
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and knowing whether there's a wink in the headline or there's a like, we're in on the joke kind of thing.
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Every so often, like an onion piece gets put out on Instagram or whatever, and people are reacting to the headline like it's a real headline.
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They're not aware that it's satire anymore.
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Why is it that when we're all seeing it on our feeds, that perspective is gone?
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So when the onion first started coming out, they used to put it out.
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In New York City's subway station, usually I think around like going home from work time.
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So you'd grab a copy and laugh your head off inside on the subway.
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I think I'm looking forward to cracking up.
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I hope I can like, you know, totally crack up.
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So I haven't like totally cracked up in a long time.
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So it was like your friend, you know what I mean?
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You knew what to expect.
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You could immerse yourself in their worldview and laugh at your day, transition back to the real world from whatever you were doing all day long.
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And now, like you said, it's like cute small animals in nature.
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And, oh, my God, we're bombing Iran again.
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And, oh, wait, is this funny or is this not funny?
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Because the real headlines seem almost too crazy to be true.
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And is this also true?
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Maybe it is. Who knows?
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We have lost, like, the plot on, like, what is reality, surreality, satire.
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It's like we're living in a satire.
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We really need to be talking about the different types of literacy skills.
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I mean, this is so not the point, but related that one video of the Love Island contestants mispronouncing words like epitome instead of epitome
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So many people were like we're cooked.
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No one knows how to read
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But actually mispronunciation doesn't mean you don't know how to read
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because the fact they can come up with these words in their heads
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Actually points to the fact that they have read those words before
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But it's the lack of hearing them aloud in conversation.
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So mispronunciations are a symptom of something else
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Not a lack of reading.
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We're gonna compromise with each other
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But aside from that, researchers Kate Barranco and Kendall Bryant write
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that most media literacy approaches simply teach students how to fact -check claims they read on the internet and cross -reference sources.
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But they don't teach students about platform incentives, the addictive nature of infinite feeds, and the psychological impacts of being repeatedly exposed to sensationalized content.
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They write, youth find themselves trapped in vicious cycles online that foment feelings of powerlessness,
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desensitization, and disconnection.
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In other words, to combat rage bait, we have to understand how creators
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and social media companies benefit from this type of content
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and how it plays into one of our strongest and most physically and psychologically activated emotions, Anchor.
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The role of the headline has always been to, to, in as short an amount of time as possible,
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inform and catch the attention of a broad audience.
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The news is important.
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Cultural criticism is important.
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The things that you do are important.
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And so it's important that people consume it, read it, get access to it,
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watch it, and And have the ideas contained within it in their brains.
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If in order for that to happen, there's got to be a salacious headline, a grabbing title.
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If you have to make people a little mad in order for them to ultimately be in possession of information
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that is good for them to have, then like, maybe that's okay.
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Most of the time.
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clickbait headlines.
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And I think rage bait headlines in particular, especially, I find them to be fundamentally antisocial.
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So what exactly happens in our brains on a chemical level when we are exposed to rage bait?
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For one, the anger we experience triggers a fight or flight response.
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Psychology professor Bethany Teachman explains that our brain classifies negative or anger inducing information like rage bait as potentially threatening.
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This perceived threat triggers a stress response, increasing our heart rate, shallowing our breathing, heightening our alertness, and flooding us with stress hormones.
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Basically, when we read an outrageous headline or watch
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Fruit Love Island on TikTok, our body thinks that we're being hunted by a bear in the woods.
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Teachman explains that when we experience anger, we're motivated to take action to defend ourselves, to correct an injustice, or to solve a problem,
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which is why we interact with rage bait, even when we know it's rage bait.
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Engaging with what's made us angry feels like the only way to right the wrong
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that the conflict has inflicted on our nervous system.
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However, as anyone who's left an angry comment on a rage bait post knows, engaging with the content doesn't exactly make you feel better long term,
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since it doesn't actually settle any score or wipe away the enraged feeling.
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The other fucked up thing is that the angrier the rage bait content makes us feel,
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the more we want to engage with more content like it.
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I mean, I've totally found myself in the position where there will be internet discourse du jour,
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such as the case with the Peter Pan fangirl at Disneyland, and I will just keep watching every video made about the discourse,
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like a train wreck that I can't look away from.
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And even if I want to look away, for instance, in the case of the Sydney Sweeney sports betting ad,
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the algorithm will keep serving it to me anyway, because it knows this is human behavior to want to reinforce a negative mood.
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And it's hoping that I will...
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play into it and therefore my eyeballs will be worth something for advertisers.
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Girls!
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And it's not just my personal experience, okay?
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In one study, researchers found that when people were in a negative mood, their preference for more negative movie summaries increased.
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When we're feeling bad and especially vulnerable, we want to consume media that reinforces our view of the world, not contradicts it.
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That may also be the reason why Lana Del Rey hits so hard after a breakup.
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But I think these things end up reinforcing negativity and a habit of bad faith readings.
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I wouldn't even classify the Waysian generation as being a rage bait title,
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but when we're overexposed to so many negative emotions all the time through constant discourse,
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a vulture photo collage might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
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But surprise, surprise, consuming rage bait is not good for our health long -term.
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Prolonged anger over time can lead to worsened anxiety, depression, irritability, burnout, and hypervigilance,
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causing our nervous systems to scan safe situations for threats and laying the groundwork for a state of chronic stress.
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Constantly experiencing intense anger can also turn anger into a habit,
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strengthening the neural pathways that trigger the emotion and making it an easier state for our brains to default to.
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Beyond how rage bait makes us feel and act online,
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I'm more curious about how it could be subliminally affecting our anger levels and relationships off the internet,
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especially because anger has reportedly been on the rise since 2016, according to Gallup's 2025
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Global Emotions Report.
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Wonder what happened that year.
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Nearly one in four Gallup respondents reported feeling angry every day.
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And while anger was understandably high in areas of war, genocide, extreme poverty, and civil unrest,
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people in countries that are widely considered peaceful and prosperous in comparison were still quite angry.
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For instance, 17 % of respondents in the UK reported feeling daily anger, as well as 18 % of Americans.
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Pew Research Center also found that almost half of Americans say people have gotten ruder since the COVID -19 pandemic.
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Journalist Royzen Lanigan writes
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that it's tempting to blame this rise in anger on all of the unprecedented cultural
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and political events that have transpired over the last decade from Trump's presidency,
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further dividing Americans politically to COVID confining all of us in our homes and causing fear and anxiety to fester.
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She expresses concern about people becoming addicted to being angry and the anger generated by rage bait manifesting in violence offline.
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Writing, perhaps the best way to look at rage is not as an epidemic, but as a cultural addiction.
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And like all addictions, unless we find a way to manage it, it will eat away at us,
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leaving less and less of ourselves behind a growing societal red mist.
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The only problem with the boil over to Simmersycle is that it leaves us with nowhere to go.
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If everyone is already angry all the time, every day, forever, then what comes after the rage?
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While I understand why writers like Lannigan have this concern,
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I do think that there is some dissonance between how people act in real life and how they act online.
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I doubt that half the people angrily commenting on rage bait posts online would lash out angrily in real life.
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I mean, what's that joke about how
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Gen Z is too anxious to schedule doctor appointments over the phone?
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I would also say that beyond the anxiety of strongly emoting in public,
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expressing anger, especially in this day and age when people love to film those sorts of things with their phone,
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or now metaglasses, anger can lead to negative consequences.
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You can lose your job.
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You can be cyberbullied about it for the next few weeks online.
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You can even be physically harmed if the confrontation goes too poorly.
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But aside from those reasons, online anonymity is also a security blanket.
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For example, one study comparing the tens of thousands of online comments found that over half
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Half of anonymous comments included language that was vulgar, racist, and hateful, while only 29 % of non -anonymous comments were considered uncivil.
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Still, even if angry outbursts remain solely online,
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an internet where people are constantly getting upset by the things they're passively consuming doesn't seem like a positive place to be.
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I mean, 57 % of Americans say they spent at least five hours a day looking at screens.
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That's a lot of time to be in a negative place.
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My biggest concern is that if people keep getting enraged at provocative headlines and irritating but ultimately harmless content creators,
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then they may get less angry at the things that are actually worth getting mad about, like social injustice and humanitarian crises.
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If we get angry at everything, then it feels like anger can no longer be a tool to inspire positive action.
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It just becomes an unhelpful and unhealthy status quo.
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Okay, let's lighten things up the other day
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I asked my followers on Instagram to submit voice memos reflecting
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on a past experience where they were really angry at something or someone online.
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The caveat being that they must find the whole thing funny or stupid now in retrospect.
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And I wanted to do this to sort of put things in perspective about how a lot of things
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that enrage us online are actually not that enraging.
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And perhaps we just got swept along with the discourse or some internet troll caught us on a bad day.
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And I think when we're able to have a laugh about it later, whether that be the next day or after years.
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It's completing the journey of that emotion and reaching a positive end for that circumstance.
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It's only fair that I start first.
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I actually have really bad short -term memory
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and I try to be offline a lot anyways because now this is my career.
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So nothing sticks out in recent memory, which I think is a cop -out.
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I know that's a cop -out, but I used to have a Tumblr account.
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I was a big
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Tumblr girl all throughout my childhood and so I went digging back into it
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because I also knew I had posted all these rants on it all the time.
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Anyways, this was a post I found from 2012 when I was 14 years old.
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The context that I was responding to was that in 2012, Cole Sprouse made a Tumblr blog to study human behavior
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and then deleted it after we acted exactly like how he predicted we would.
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At the time, a lot of kids, not just me, were annoyed
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because it was like he was making fun of being a Tumblrina and exploiting our goodwill and engagement with his blog.
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But you know, being a 14 -year -old egomaniac, I was genuinely pissed and this was a hill I was ranting on for like 48 hours.
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Anyways, someone asked me, hi, smiley face.
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I was wondering what it was that
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Cole Sprouse did that has so many people angry.
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I knew he had a Tumblr, but did he post something offensive or question mark?
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My reply, it wasn't just one thing he said, but his whole personality and the way he carried himself like he was
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so much more mature slash better than all of us.
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TBH, he was just a pretentious ass who kept lecturing people on what they were doing wrong.
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I can't watch
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The Suite Life of Zach and Cody anymore without wanting to hit Cody in the head,
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tbh mic drop okay so that was my experience of raging at something
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that i think is quite funny now in retrospect
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but i am going to share a couple
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that have been submitted to me now so let's listen
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when i was 13 years old
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or 12 on tumblr .com
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i remember seeing a girl post about how she was in chicago with her mom at a hotel
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and they ordered a pizza and she was really confused
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and upset and making fun of the pizza places in Chicago
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because they kept delivering them cheeseless pizzas I don't know like what pre -teen hormonal anger unleashed in my brain
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but I sent her a unhinged explicit rant calling her stupid for not knowing what deep dish pizza was.
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I was just kind of like, you're an idiot.
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You don't know what deep dish pizza is.
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There's not supposed to be cheese on top of it.
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Like I can tell that that's a deep dish crust, like you stupid idiot.
371
And she responded to it and she was like, oh my God, yeah, this is deep dish pizza, but you'll hear so mean.
372
He made me cry.
373
I think I just felt immediate shame and ended up deleting that entire Tumblr page.
374
Deleting a whole
375
Tumblr page after feeling humiliated is is so real and i've done i've done that too
376
so this was when myspace existed somebody sends me a message
377
and they're like you stole my profile layout at this time i was a little html coding ass bitch
378
so i was like the hell i fucking did it
379
so i go to their ugly ass page our pages look nothing alike
380
so we're going back and forth we're fighting with each other they're trying to meet up
381
and fight with me anyways i ended up throwing a chair across my room over somebody saying
382
that i stole their myspace profile layout i fucking did it that was awesome
383
i unfollowed somebody on twitter one time they said they didn't like the taste of water
384
and i was like okay that's it
385
and i still think this is valid actually i think
386
i can follow people for like the dumbest stuff on twitter also any opportunity
387
i had to like clear the following
388
and like get rid of all the the mess in there I would take it and water is a good one
389
so the thing I get annoyed by on the internet is
390
when people are not using emojis correctly
391
or in a way that's weird to me I don't know you see a video about someone cooking pasta
392
and someone will comment about how good it looks with the emoji
393
that's like blushing I don't understand why you would use
394
that emoji in that context and
395
that can piss me off for a good 30 minutes
396
and I will keep on talking about it
397
that pisses me off I feel very similarly about the crying with the tears going out emoji
398
because I remember people had said like it was really millennial to use
399
that as the crying laughing face and you should use the the sobbing face
400
when you're laughing so hard I turned 30
401
and then for some reason
402
I was like I need to use like the normal crying
403
laughing emoji like there's nothing wrong with it it's a beautiful emoji
404
and we should be using it in the context
405
that um it was created thank you so much for sharing everyone
406
if you want to be part of these hotlines in the future um i post mostly on instagram those opportunities
407
and i usually keep them up for like 24 hours just to contain the amount of requests
408
that i get they're always a fun opportunity and i i thank you
409
so much for being a part of them because this segment would exist unless people were brave and vulnerable about
410
What they've been stupid about.
411
We'll go on with our history list. To fully understand how
412
Rage Bait got to the place it has today, we have to take it back to the late 19th century
413
when sensationalized journalism rose as a way for media tycoons Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to compete with one another.
414
Need a Challenger -style biopic about the feud between these two in which I'm in the center of them.
415
Just kidding.
416
Ew.
417
Yellow journalism is the term used to describe the hyperbolic, salacious journalism style that newspapers adopted on the heels of the Industrial Revolution.
418
They were perhaps the natural successor to penny papers, a more extreme model with bigger presses and bigger headlines.
419
Where did this term yellow journalism even come from, you might ask?
420
Well, let me introduce you to Hogan's Alley, a popular comic in Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, New York World, which stars Mickey Duggan,
421
a character who wore a distinct yellow coat intended to represent an Irish -American living in a New York tenement building.
422
Hogan's Alley significantly increased sales for the New York World, which angered Hearst, who owned the New York Journal, the world's rival paper.
423
To retaliate, Hearst not only began copying the sensationalist writing style of the New York world, but he also hired RF Outkult, the artist behind
424
Hogan's Alley, sparking a bidding war over the cartoonist and the yellow kid character, which inadvertently coined yellow journalism in the process.
425
So actually to backtrack, we need challengers with Pulitzer, Hurst, and Outkult in the center.
426
In the yellow journalism, the press in America's emergence as a world power, author David R.
427
Spencer writes that this sensational style of press emerged,
428
in part due to advances in technology and changing philosophies about the role of the press and society.
429
Lithography
430
and later photography allowed visuals to become an integral eye -catching aspect of newspaper stories towards the end of the 19th century, especially in crime reporting.
431
Nothing had to be left to the imagination anymore.
432
Media critic James W.
433
Carey also observed a shift in the role of the press.
434
Before, the press was simply using the news to inform audiences, but now they were using highly dramatic stories to represent a culture's shared values.
435
Newspapers weren't just sites of transmission, but ritualistic stories that tied a culture together.
436
Kerry expressed concern about how this transition would impact the public's perception of reality, writing, questions arise as to the effects of this on audiences,
437
news as enlightening or obscuring reality, as changing or hardening attitudes, as breeding credibility or doubt.
438
Questions are also raised concerning the function of news and the newspaper?
439
Does it maintain the integration of society or its maladaptation?
440
Does it function or misfunction to maintain stability or promote the instabilities of personalities?
441
The New York World and the New York Journal became especially dramatized when covering the Spanish -American War of 1898.
442
For context, this war was a brief conflict between Spain
443
and the United States that resulted in the end of Spain's colonial reign in Cuba
444
and further cemented the U .S as a global political force.
445
While the World and the Journal had each published a handful of sensationalized interest stories throughout the conflict, notably about prisoner executions, valiant rebels,
446
and starving women and children in Cuba.
447
The coverage reached a fever pitch following the USS Maine explosion of 1898.
448
On February 15th, 1898, the USS Maine sailed into Havana Harbor and mysteriously exploded, killing two officers and 264 sailors.
449
The following day, the New York Journal published the highly exaggerated headline, warship Maine was split in two by enemy secret infernal machine.
450
The newspaper didn't reveal what the secret infernal machine was
451
and its word choice was misleading as there wasn't any evidence yet that the explosion had actually resulted from enemy involvement.
452
The New York world's headline
453
and subheading were similarly grotesque reading the U .S battleship Maine
454
blown up in Havana Harbor more than 100 of the crew killed by the explosion which occurred while they were asleep.
455
Put on my cast her voice for that one.
456
But now it alludes to a surprise enemy attack.
457
They were sleeping.
458
Both newspapers kept the details of the explosion vague and incomplete so that readers would keep buying issues as more information emerged.
459
In the journal, Hearst offered a $50 ,000 reward, which is equivalent to over $2 million today,
460
for anyone who could provide information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible, further pushing the narrative of enemy involvement,
461
and literally offering a reward for people's attention.
462
To compete with this drama, Pulitzer sent a crew of divers to Havana to inspect the wreckage and draw up their own conclusions,
463
but they were denied access to the scene of the explosion by the Spanish.
464
One of the major lies
465
that both newspapers published was a fake cablegram by Maine Captain Sigsby to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
466
stating that he was certain that the explosion was not an accident.
467
Hearst was particularly keen on publishing outright lies, positing that the journal had conclusive proof of an explosive device being anchored by the Spanish,
468
as well as a map supposedly showing all the Spanish mines installed in Havana Harbor.
469
In the end, there were no solid conclusions that pointed to the real cause of the main explosion.
470
On March 21st, about five weeks after the explosion, President McKinley concluded that the explosion resulted from a submarine mine,
471
though naval and historical analysts today think it was likely due to a spontaneous fire in the coal bunker.
472
The main explosion was ultimately the tipping point that caused the U .S to go to war with Spain,
473
and obviously, while the newspapers didn't directly cause the war,
474
Hearst and Pulitzer's papers heavily influenced the public's reaction to the events leading up to it and generated strong public support.
475
Clearly, war was in the best interest of the papers,
476
as indicated by a comment Hearst made to illustrator Frederick Remington in the lead -up to the war.
477
You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war.
478
So at worst, rage bait leads to war, and at best, rage bait causes a psychological harm.
479
I'm joking, but also I'm kind of not.
480
Like, it is just a crazy stressful environment that we're living in.
481
So I thought I would ask Michael and Manoush for their opinions on how to deal with the current media environment,
482
and most importantly, how to stay sane.
483
I think limit your intake, number one.
484
Like, it is shocking how quickly you realize what is actually important in the actual world
485
when you cut down on how much you're looking at online it's unbelievable it's like stark it's shocking um
486
but then if you can't or even when you do
487
if you find yourself
488
if you find yourself still having strong reactions
489
it's to like just try to be in tune with those reactions like it's
490
so hard to step outside yourself
491
but feeling how you feel is a very important skill as a media consumer media is designed to make
492
you feel things that's the purpose of it it's every single part of it is made yes to inform you
493
but like that that comes with feelings and every producer of media knows that and
494
so feeling how you feel about these things especially as you're feeling them is a skill something
495
you need to develop and very very important so
496
when you start to feel like oh you know like you want to turn to your group of friends
497
or whatever people you know who align with you politically
498
and go look at this bullshit that's a signal
499
you're like okay pump the brakes
500
you know what's going on here why am i feeling this do do i need to be involved
501
and like is there anything i can actually do about it
502
if the answer to those things is no then just like leave it
503
because sharing it is only going to make more people mad
504
we're asking too much of the brain we are not machines
505
and this gets into my expertise right like whenever
506
we are switching between context like we're like whether that's the context of the information you're getting
507
or like from screen to screen to screen to screen your
508
body has to keep up right like we are burning through glucose
509
and oxygen to make sense of it to make sense of it to make sense of it
510
and you do that all day long and unfortunately
511
or fortunately we're not computers i can't just plug myself in
512
and like all day long and be like able to function at
513
that capacity the more we do it the more we burn through the glucose
514
and oxygen we build up co2 in our brain
515
we start to feel foggy we get tired we make worse decisions
516
we need cognitive breaks
517
we need physical breaks in order to really be discerning to
518
decide is this good information is this funny information is this real should i really take
519
this like the way
520
it's intended all of those things are wrapped up in our human capability to have good judgment
521
and um and good taste
522
and decision making skills all right my beautiful doves let's review what we learned today over the past decade or
523
so digital publishers have heavily relied on open -ended curiosity inducing
524
headlines known as clickbait to get people to well click on their articles
525
but to compete with increasingly addictive short -form content on social media, headlines have only become more emotionally charged, morphing more into rage bait,
526
or content designed with the specific aim of inciting rage in people.
527
Even if they can't be firmly classified as rage bait, these headlines can incite already present negative feelings about an issue.
528
Magazines are unfortunately now the last stop on the discourse train, so by the time they publish a headline,
529
we're already sick to death talking about the topic, and therefore trying to spark more discussion about it just annoys us further.
530
In addition to headlines, content creators often employ rage -bait tactics to increase engagement by intentionally making upsetting, disturbing, or tone -deaf content,
531
or posting misinformation and AI -generated images.
532
We often engage with rage bait because it pulls us out of our passive scrolling sessions,
533
catching our eyes more easily than anything else on our social media feeds.
534
When rage bait makes us angry, our brain classifies the stimulus as threatening, pushing us into a state of fight or flight,
535
and compelling us to interact with the content as a means of self -protection and harm mitigation.
536
However, while studies do suggest that anger is on the rise worldwide,
537
there's clearly a discrepancy between how people act in real life and how they act online,
538
as the anonymity offered by the internet allows more leeway to act uncivil.
539
And clearly there's a level of self -awareness that comes with interacting with RageBait,
540
as many of you shared the funniest things you've personally gotten upset over online via our RageBait hotline.
541
Maybe we aren't as illiterate as the doobers like to admit.
542
And by looking closer at penny papers and yellow journalism in the 19th century,
543
it's clear that RageBait has always been a powerful means of getting people to read the news.
544
Sowing fear, outrage, and uncertainty in readers has long been an effective way to influence the public's opinion about many things,
545
from war and colonialism to having a boyfriend and being wajian.
546
I agree with our guest experts, Michael Rignetta and Manoush Zomorodi,
547
that one of the best ways to not let rage bait get to you is to simply limit your intake
548
and take intentional breaks from consuming content you know will upset you, especially with short -form content creators commenting on and sharing content
549
that upsets us only further helps rage baiters monetize their rage bait.
550
While leaving a nasty comment might offer an immediate release of dopamine, it's not a stable, long -term way of minimizing anger.
551
Getting enraged at rage bait is kind of like blowing up at your sibling after they're clearly trying to upset you.
552
You're just giving the poster what they want.
553
The only way you can truly win is by disengaging altogether.
554
The real challenge short -form rage baiters will face is converting the attention they're getting into something that actually lasts,
555
as knee -jerk reactions don't feel particularly sustainable.
556
Relatedly, communication scholar Angele Christin actually interviewed rage bait content creators
557
and many of them reported feeling exhausted and depressed constantly thinking about how to feed the algorithm what it wants.
558
So things to consider before quitting your job to become a rage bait influencer.
559
As for the headlines, the issue of whether
560
or not publications should paywall articles with rage inducing headlines
561
and cover images is complex because on one hand it feels kind of unfair
562
that most readers literally can't read past the provocative headline because of a paywall.
563
But on the other hand, I understand that publications have to make money and journalists must be paid.
564
And paid subscriptions and ad impressions are a big part of how they do that,
565
which incentivizes them to use clickbait to get readers to click on the article or pay for a subscription.
566
As Michael said, media is designed to make us feel things.
567
It's ultimately a good thing that we're moved by the things we're reading online.
568
But I think the best way to mitigate rage is to take a step back
569
and assess the source before we react to the content.
570
We should ask ourselves what the person or publication posting the content has to gain from us getting upset.
571
Are they presenting things in black and white sensationalized terms or is their argument nuanced?
572
What are their credentials and political affiliations?
573
Is their content clearly designed to bait an algorithm?
574
Do they have a side business they're trying to promote?
575
And when that doesn't help temper our rage, perhaps it's best to take our rage to a more pro -social venue,
576
like a group chat instead of a comment section.
577
When something makes you mad, call your friends and vent.
578
Turn rage bait into something that brings us together instead of something that tears us apart.
579
Okay, everyone, this is the end of the video.
580
Thank you so much for listening and getting to this point.
581
And if you missed the hotline
582
and you want to share an experience where you got mad
583
and you feel like it was kind of silly to get mad about that now in retrospect, feel free to leave a comment about that experience.
584
Those are always just like so fun to listen to and to read.
585
So I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I'll see you next time.
586
Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “what happened to critical thinking?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: rage, bait, headline, content. This video has 341 sentences and 8124 words to shadow. The speech runs for 43:42. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rage noun | /ɹeɪd͡ʒ/ | Violent uncontrolled anger. |
| bait noun | /beɪt/ | Any substance, especially food, used in catching fish, or other animals, by alluring them to a hook, snare, trap, or net. |
| headline noun | /ˈhɛd.laɪn/ | The heading or title of a magazine or newspaper article. |
| anger noun | /ˈæŋɡə/ | A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm… |
| explosion noun | /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/ | A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical); an act or instance of exploding. |
| journalism noun | /ˈd͡ʒɝnl̩ˌɪzəm/ | The aggregating, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles for widespread distribution, typically in electronic publications, broadcast news… |
| penny noun | /ˈpɛni/ | In the United Kingdom, a unit of currency worth ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a pound sterling, or a copper coin worth this amount. Abbreviation: p. |
| publication noun | /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/ | The act of publishing printed or other matter. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| discourse noun | /ˈdɪs.kɔːɹs/ | Expression in words, either speech or writing. |
| pizza noun | /ˈpi.tsə/ | A baked Italian dish of a thinly rolled bread crust typically topped before baking with tomato sauce, cheese, and other ingredients such as meat or vegetables. |
| engage verb | /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied. |
| generate verb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/ | To bring into being; give rise to. |
| creator noun | /kɹiːˈeɪ̯təː/ | Something or someone which creates or makes something. |
| literacy noun | /ˈlɪtəɹəsi/ | The ability to read and write. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| burn through verb | To use up in a hasty or destructive manner. | |
| crack up verb | /ˈkɹæk ˈʌp/ | To laugh heartily. |
| lead up to verb | To set in motion; to act as a causal or preparatory event or sequence of events. | |
| blow off verb | To vent, usually, to reduce pressure in a container. | |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I think I'm looking forward to cracking up.
- We're, it's like we're living in a satire.
- We're gonna compromise with each other.
- Why am I feeling this?
- Should I really take this, like, the way it's intended?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been working · I've been seeing |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to put · used to have |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have heard · have become · has always been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is brought · is gleaned · were made |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 126 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, bath /bɑːθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: explosion /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/, publication /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, dish /dɪʃ/, intentionally /ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: publication /ˌpʌblɪˈkeɪʃ(ə)n/, literacy /ˈlɪtəɹəsi/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, intentionally /ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/, similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like rage, bait, headline.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.