I consider myself fluent in the language of the internet. I can spot a scam a mile away, and I don’t often fall victim to social media posts that are just meant to draw controversy. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was scrolling through Twitter and came across an infuriating post that read, “The best years of your life are 14 to 19. Prove me wrong.” I immediately saw red – how could someone be so stupid? I tried with all my might not to engage, but I simply had to.
By my second straight hour of leading discourse in the comments, I looked up from my phone and realized it had happened: the rage bait had worked.
Blinded by anger, I started my response by typing an extremely long tweet about how high school was the absolute worst four years of my life, and that anyone who thinks ages 14 to 19 are “our most enjoyable and productive years” should be shot. I didn’t even wait for responses before I added a second tweet to the thread, in which I defended the ages 27-32 – when I would argue the most personal growth occurs – and ages 33-38 – when one often finds contentment.
Should I have known the author wasn’t genuinely asking for any of this and instead just wanted views and engagement? Sure. Should I have been tipped off to this because their username was “P/U/S/S/Y/I/N/B/I/O/6/9”? I would argue that’s up in the air.
My comment spurred a deluge of other responses, and pretty soon, I was fighting for my life. Within five minutes, I was in four simultaneous arguments and engaged in the silent treatment with one additional user. One was arguing that 65+ was the best age because of retirement, one kept saying he simply wished he’d never been born at all, and another wasn’t talking about the topic altogether, instead using this as an excuse to yell a bunch of expletives that took way too long to be hidden by the platform.
The last person I was arguing with kept saying that eight was the best age to be, and part of me suspected he was just eight. Mostly because he kept referring to seven as “baby age” and nine as “too big boy.”
I came to my senses hours later, drenched in sweat and nursing a newly formed cocaine addiction. I kicked myself for not realizing the post was rage bait sooner, but I had to admit, the porn bot had bested me!
