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Last September, Naima Troutt was one of 25 liberal college students chosen to debate Charlie Kirk. One interaction in the 90-minute video was particularly memorable: After Kirk attempts to argue that abortion is murder, Troutt mutters to herself, “Ugh, his smile is very creepy.” “Oh, so smiling is creepy?” he asks, to which she replies, “No, your smile specifically.” The room erupts into laughter. The clip went viral. Fan edits were made in her honor. In the world of debates designed for maximum social-media engagement, she’d won.

“I became ‘The Jubilee Girl,’” Troutt recalls, now 23 and in her last semester at the University of Southern California. She’s referring to one of the most notorious internet shows that bring on guests for the purpose of arguing with, or, more often, scolding them for their beliefs. The most outrageous tend to go the most viral: A July Jubilee episode with over 12 million views pitted the progressive commentator Mehdi Hasan against 20 far-right people; the second-most-viewed video after the Kirk episode asked scientists to find a “middle ground” with flat-earth conspiracy theorists.

Most of these shows traffic heavily in gender-war content, either explicitly or subtextually. The Whatever podcast, for instance, on which weekly live-video episodes can run for an astonishing nine hours or more, usually involves a handful of reactionary men attempting to shame the young women across from them through clumsy thought experiments meant to rebuke contemporary feminism (“Should women be forced to have kids?” asks the all-caps text over a typical clip). Financial Audit, a show whose ostensible goal is helping guests with poor-spending habits achieve financial security, has given its episodes names like “Pathetic Brat Thinks She’s Hot Sh*t,” “I’ve Never Hated a More Vile Piece of Trash,” “You’re Going to Hate Her,” “Spoiled. Toxic. B*tch.,” and “She Sucks…” The most recognizable debaters engage in clip-farming, or cutting snippets from their episodes most likely to garner outrage and posting them on their social accounts. Nearly every video podcast uses this strategy now, but it’s especially useful in serving up 60-second context-free dunks on an opponent to make them look as idiotic as possible: Thanks to clip-farming, you don’t actually have to “win” an argument to make it seem like you did — just post the 30 seconds of you making a good point.

Debate shows have exploded in popularity as the world has become angrier, more divided, and more online. They’ve been criticized for their futility (is anyone’s mind actually being changed here?) and correctly categorized as rage bait, existing solely to piss off the viewer. After Kirk was shot........

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