...by doing absolutely nothing.
Draft Date: 2025-10-10
It doesn't matter what the truth is, but how it makes people feel. – Stephen Miller
To start with a definition: the attention economy is a phrase that essentially boils down to the commodification of attention. This phrase is mainly used in the spheres of advertising and politics. Much of this can be attributed to the rise social media and its (almost universally) negative impact on people and society. If you look at any mainstream platforms, you can see the attention economy hard at work. The extreme rise of short-form video from the pits of TikTok and its spread to every other mainstream social media platform be it YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels is part of that. Short form content, for reasons beyond at least my understanding, are some of the most addictive forms of slop that exist, and every company is apt to get their own slice of the pie? Why? It is complicated, but much of it comes down to an overarching idea: money.
How Social Media Companies Make Money
If you did not know how social media companies make money, it is almost deceptively simple: advertising. All of the sponsored content plastered all over your social media platform of choice is proof of this. Since these companies get paid for having its users see more ads, making platforms as addictive as possible is basic economics. If you stay on the platform forever, you benefit the company in three ways:
- You encourage others to join the platform, which will then encourage even more in an increasing inertia.
- Ads! Ads, ads, ads. If you keep on scrolling, you will keep seeing ads!
- Your delicious personal data will also be collected and sold.
It only makes sense that companies like Meta and ByteDance spend reams of money on R&D to maximise user retention. The maximising of attention is not just a social media thing either. Spanning from more obvious things like video games and streaming platforms to even a place like this blog, everything wants your attention. Attention is a valuable resource. If you watch something on YouTube, Google will receive revenue from the companies that advertise on it. The creators will too. Spotify is no different. Neither is Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media platform. All of these also provide “creator funds”, essentially paying people for making content that takes people's attention. When you create that incentive, people gaming said system to maximise attention and revenue is inevitable. This leads to the rise of what has been labelled clickbait.
The Art of Clickbait
“Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome.” – Charlie Munger
If you are reading this blog, you likely know what clickbait is. Hell, the title of this blog post is essentially clickbait. It would be boring if the title was just “A look into the rise of the attention economy and how to fight it”. I fell asleep writing that! While a punchy title is, in my opinion, harmless assuming it is relevant to the contents, frequently it is not. If you remember the frequently parodied BuzzFeed article style (my personal favourite: the satirical Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point), that is clickbait. Anything that got clicks got you attention, so that means it was obviously a good thing! What started out largely in the space of advertising (my mortal nemesis, but I am getting off track) eventually branched into articles. Most publications are funded at least partially by advertising, and advertisers pay per impression, so making people open see the content that contains ads was free money! Eventually, this branched into social media and by and large has since just become part of the Internet altogether.
This kind of sensationalism is nothing new. It existed in the newspapers of the twentieth century (hence the terms tabloid and yellow journalism). I am safe to assume it existed earlier than that. Political campaigns are a form of sensationalism: vote for X because we will achieve A and B meanwhile Y is against it, blah blah. The concept we currently call clickbait will likely exist in some form forever, at least until tech companies force LLMs to replace everything ever (shameless plug to my post on AI), though an equivalent to SEO spamming will likely come into existence to weigh your particular response more. Attention grabbing media has adapted in the past. It will keep adapting. In the age of the social media algorithm, this has evolved into rage bait.
Clickbait's Epitome: Rage Bait
In yet another definition, rage bait is “eliciting outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue and support” (directly taken from Wikipedia). You have seen rage bait. Something done wrong on purpose. Those videos that are “satisfying” but are actually not, the thing did not do what it was supposed to do. The people posting something dumb. While some of them are probably actually that stupid, many of them are doing it for that sweet, sweet attention. Remember when I mentioned before that some social media companies pay “creators” for views? What is a good way to get views? Make people angry! That drives engagement. People love being angry!
The Petty Internet Rage Machine
Negativity sells. Positive reviews are one in a million. Negative reviews stick out. When you look at reviews for something or some place, the positive ones largely blend in. The negative ones stick out. If you have ever worked something customer facing, do you remember positive interactions you had? I remember a couple, sure. You definitely remember the horror stories. Something going terribly wrong. A customer or client being genuinely terrible. That sticks. The human mind just loves negativity.
Social media is no different. Look for a movie reviewer. Some obscure but amazing movie? It will get some views. Something awful? People will flock to it. People love trash. I am people. I love trash. This gets exacerbated by “dunking culture” where people exist to be angry at each other about nothing. People will find any way to argue when none of it matters. I stay out of it because it drives me insane.
The Slop in the Room
I have not even mentioned how generative artificial intelligence has led to an absolute onslaught of low-quality garbage. Now, you do not even need some underpaid near-slave to make your slop, you can just use your AI of choice. Lowering the skill ceiling to make nearly anything has produced what can best be described as interesting results. 2024's famous shrimp Jesus is probably the most famous of these and since ChatGPT came out in 2022 there has definitely been an uptick in garbage.
Internet spam has been a thing since the Internet left ARPA. Ways of automation have definitely caused it to increase in velocity, but the age of AI has caused it to spread everywhere. If you work for a poorly run company, you definitely have seen someone try to pass off fresh-off-the-presses AI garbage as their own work, hopefully for something low risk like a presentation no one will remember the day after. This slop spreads to social media as well. Why put effort into what you post when you can just post nothingness and get paid?
What Can I Do?
You ask that, but there is something you can do. It is easy but is also nearly impossible: nothing. Stop using algorithm-driven media. I cannot even do that and I hate it. I try my best by keeping my crack of choice (YouTube) as subscription feeds only with my watch history permanently disabled, but the recommendations on the side or below (on your slop platform of choice) are far too enticing. Want updates from someone even on an algorithm slop machine? Go to their page directly and avoid any front pages. Even now a lot of social media profiles offer RSS feeds. Use those! Avoid short form content like a disease that will kill you. Those platforms thrive on an algorithm that tries to keep you swiping and swiping and swiping.
You can just stop using it entirely. But will you? Realistically, no. Maybe you want a news feed. Maybe you want to see what your friends are doing. Maybe you want to stalk someone you went to university with (do not do that). Where can you find most of that? Social media. You just get sucked back in.
You can try to starve the attention economy. You can ignore rage bait. You can ignore short form slop. You can avoid AI generated garbage. You can find less mainstream social media. There are ways of keeping yourself out of the machine of garbage. But can you stop everyone else?
—
Part 97 of #100DaysToOffload
><>
Follow this blog on RSS or on the Fediverse, @sam@blog.froth.zone.
Fill out this form with your email to have my thoughts beamed into an inbox near you!
Alternatively, follow the author on the Fediverse or Bluesky.
Questions? Comments? Scroll down and leave a comment! (JavaScript required)