You roll over in bed, phone in hand, before the day has even begun. The first headline screams: “This Politician Just Betrayed America!” Scroll a little further, and another blares: “Ten Reasons You Should Be Furious About Today’s News.” Below it, a shaky video clip goes viral—no context, just enough to ignite thousands of furious comments. Within seconds, strangers are tearing each other apart in the thread.

It’s barely 7 a.m., and already the outrage machine has done its work. You’re not calmer, wiser, or better informed. You’re agitated. And someone, somewhere, is profiting from that agitation. And it isn’t just your feed. Whole corporations and movements are built on manufacturing that same cycle of anger. Consider what happened with Target.

When Target rolled back its diversity program in June 2025, outrage seemed to erupt overnight. But nearly 27% of the accounts shouting “war on families” and “boycott this woke nonsense” weren’t people at all; they were bots. But the fake anger worked: real posts multiplied by 700%, overwhelming social feeds and news cycles.

It was outrage at scale—engineered, monetized, contagious. Target’s retreat became less about policy and more about clicks, shares, and rage. Indeed, outrage consistently outperforms every other kind of content online.

The numbers don’t lie: Outrage drives clicks, clicks drive ads, and ads drive profit. The system is designed so that the angrier you are, the richer someone else gets.

The first-century Stoic philosopher Seneca saw this danger long before the algorithm. “Anger is a brief madness,” he warned. Today, that madness never has the chance to burn........

© Psychology Today