Do you ever scroll through social media and see a post that has you just itching to reply?
You know the kind. Sometimes it’s asking an inane question with an obvious answer, or occasionally someone will say something just so incredibly wrong that you scratch your head immediately get the urge to correct them.
Do you? Do you click and open up the comment box and jump right in to say your piece?
Thing is… you probably shouldn’t. This is mostly all click bait. It’s an engagement trap. It’s designed to prod your subconscious into scrambling out a reply before your fingers even realize what they are doing.
It’s a hook, you are the fish. It’s a flame, and you are the moth.
I see these kinds rolling up through my feed so often, and I sometimes get the urge to open up the replies to have a little chuckle at all the people earnestly arguing with the original poster. Who falls for this stuff, I wonder. But we both know, don’t we? We all fall for it now and then. And believe me when I tell you the original poster cares not a whit what you think or say. They are not posting to change your mind or become your new internet frenemy.
Writing pithy posts that squirm under your skin and evoke a reaction from you is pretty much a science at this point. And it is such a lucrative one, it is a business, too. Clicking, liking, sharing, commenting—all of these actions that you do in response to this ire-generating post are little flags for the algorithm, which itself doesn’t care if you are happy or sad, angry or jubilant. The algorithm only wants engagement. It only cares if you interact with the post. When you do it amplifies it, elevates the voice of the author, give credibility to the account, and shines a glowing digital spotlight on any future posts by that same invisible person.
Engagement. Clicking. Correcting. Answering. All of it is fuel for the fire that sets the engines of those accounts aglow and blasts them higher into public prominence.
What happens then? One might suppose any number of things happen to an account that has supercharged itself in the algorithm, but if you don’t believe they are sold to someone with a message more sinister than the click bait you clicked on—why not write me a comment or two and tell me all the reasons I’m so wrong, huh? If you’re giving out engagement for free, I’ll take some too.