Host: How are you doing?

I'm doing well. How about you? I am doing great. Let's talk about anger first with this study. I guess the first question is why? Why did you want to look into this?

Yeah. So actually in 2020, when Elon Musk took over what's formerly Twitter now X, a lot of people were giving him a really hard time online. And he responded a lot of the time with a laughing, crying emoji. So much so that people started pointing it out. I read an article like a blog article pointing out how much he's been using it in comparison to other emojis. If you look up Elon Musk laughing crying emoji, you'll get like tons and tons of news articles about how he's responded to some sort of controversy with this emoji. And I was just really curious, because that's not what I would immediately think of as an angry response. That's a laughing, crying emoji. Not like GR, right? So I was really curious, how are we expressing, how are we interpreting anger in this new space of online like online spaces in digital landscapes?

I didn't even know that. And I'm trying to think of the last kind of post that I or comment that I had, and it was exactly a laugh and then a rolling smile. So now I need to rethink that as well. Help us understand, you know, many of us and as a journalist as well, many of us have experienced posting something we think is innocent online or something that's informative and suddenly finding, let's say, unexpected angry reactions help us understand. Do people tend to act or react more angrily online than they would perhaps in real life?

So yeah. So anger is a high arousal emotion, which means that it's one of the emotions that we're more incentivised to act upon. So even if you have 100 eyes on your post, 25 people are like, cool, that's that's great. 25 people are like, oh, that bums me out. And then 50 people are like, oh, I'm. Those 50 people are more likely than those other 50 people to comment or engage or share or talk about it. Just because it's that high arousal emotion means that they want to act.

Now, help us understand the the digital environment itself. What factors in the environment contribute to these angry reactions? I'm assuming when we talk about angry comments, angry reactions, I'm thinking right off the bat all caps kind of screaming and yelling, but we know it's as subtle as something, even in text messages, as putting a period at the end of a sentence. That might just be a generational thing. For some people, it could be the emojis. But what are the factors in the digital environment that allow for this to to kind of fester?

Yeah. So one of the main things is actually the platform that it's on. So you already touched on that. So in interpersonal communication, in that texting environment it's more likely to be what we call cold anger, where you're a little bit more invested in controlling your image, coming across as very calm collected and then also like TikTok is more likely to be supportive. That's one of the only places that I actually found. When I expected angry comments, I found a lot of people changing the narrative, actively deciding to be supportive. And then there's anecdotal evidence that says that Instagram is more likely to be angry. You're more likely to get long blog posts based off of the format in Reddit. So it just again, it depends on the environment of the actual platform that you're on, and then also the social norms of that platform. So on Instagram, it's a little bit more common to bully each other, whereas TikTok it's a little bit more common to take that step and actively be choosing to be supportive.

Can you give us an example of a story that would be kind of viewed differently amongst some of those platforms that you, you had named?

Yeah. So I actually did my research on specifically posts that were about the Canadian housing crisis. So one of the things is that just the post itself was going to probably be a different format on Reddit. It was often a link to an article or a synopsis of an article on TikTok. It could be, for example, the one with the support that was just an interview on the street, and they were like, oh, do you own a house? And this young woman said, yes, I own a house. But then there's also people just talking about their opinions and stuff like that. So a little bit more. Not as formal as Reddit, where they're like, okay, like these are the facts. Like these are the news articles that we're going to be talking about, you know, try and keep it grounded, whereas TikTok is a little bit more, you know, loosey goosey. We're just talking about our opinions, how we feel.

All right. Aside from how people reply to posts, some outlets appear to do this intentionally. Some accounts where what is known as rage baiting, which was, from what I understand, Oxford Dictionaries 2025 word of the year. Why not joy baiting or sad? What is it about rage baiting? I don't know if I just coined a term there, but yeah, what is it about rage baiting? Why is it about anger?

Yeah, I would love joy baiting. Yeah. So again, going back to that high arousal emotion, it's just going to make more money. So we're more likely to get those clicks, those shares, those comments, people actually talking about it. We there. The literature suggests that especially compared to Joy specifically, we're much more likely to engage in that active way with anger than we are with joy. So it's just at the end of the day, it's the bottom line. What's making us the most money, especially like in an era of like influencers, where what the money that you make depends quite literally on how much engagement you're getting on your post. It can be very effective to upset people and get them to engage with you on that level.

Can you give an example? I'm thinking of joy baiting. I'm thinking of cats, I love cats, I have a cat at home thinking of these cute videos and then rage baiting. What? Give me some examples of what people might be used to seeing when it's when when we consider something as rage baiting.

Yeah, a lot of the rage bait that I encountered was about immigration, because, again, that Canadian housing crisis. And so just broad statements that aren't necessarily grounded in reality about immigration and politics, just really, really broad statements that can kind of make anyone angry. It doesn't necessarily matter where you land on the political spectrum just because it's, you know, not necessarily grounded in fact, but it is a very, very emotional subject and it often is a little bit offensive.

Well, let's talk about let's use immigration as an example. You know, something that, as you said, kind of grew online. But we did see protests, you know, on both sides of the coin on that conversation across the country, are we increasingly exposed to hot anger online? And what impact does that have? Sort of in our real world? I think a lot of us think that it is kind of protected, sort of on the, on the.com. But there is are we seeing spill-over?

Yeah. So we like you said, we're a little bit we feel a little bit protected. It's called like a social isolation idea where we can't see the other person on the screen. So they kind of stop being real. And the consequences are we don't think of them. So whereas in person, I might be less likely to scream and yell at someone who disagrees with me. I'm more likely to do that online just because the consequences of how they perceive me, of my, you know, social standing is aren't in peril from this engagement. I do think that we are a little bit seeing spill-over, but there is still those social mores that inhibit us from behaving poorly in person in a way that we don't see in online spaces. So a lot of people will like, talk about like in these online spaces. I, I thought that this was really normal. And then I came out of it and it like and I talked to real people and you know, it's a lot more nuanced than maybe I'd initially thought.

With that being said, are we becoming an angrier society?

I couldn't say that's definitely a little bit out of the scope of my research, but definitely we are becoming more comfortable with being aggressive with each other in online spaces specifically.

All right. My last question to you is, you know, for someone for a lot of people who are on their phones probably watching this segment on their phones as well, what advice would you give to ordinary folks who are feeling the weight of online anger on a daily basis? What can we do?

Yeah, definitely. Number one, step back. Try and remember that the person on the other end is also a person. That's something that I always have to remind myself that they're not necessarily doing this with the intention of hurting me. They just aren't thinking about me as a person. They're thinking about me as this, you know, empty canvas of internet. And also just remember who's profiting off of what you are, what makes you angry. So if you see something and it really, really upsets you, who makes money off of that? And if it's if you can identify that, then maybe it's not worth engaging with.

All right, Claire, really appreciate your insights. Thank you so much. And yeah, let's maybe we'll watch. My phone's been listening, so I'll get lots of cat videos I'm hoping outside of this. So appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Have a good day.