Morning feeds present inflammatory headlines and viral clips that provoke immediate anger and engagement before the day begins. Social platforms and media outlets monetize that anger because outrage generates more clicks, shares, and ad revenue than calmer content. Coordinated amplification, including bot activity, can rapidly multiply real posts and overwhelm discourse, turning policy disputes into attention contests. The Target example shows 27% bot participation and a 700% surge in posts, illustrating engineered contagion. Ancient Stoic thought warned that anger is brief madness, and Stoic practices can retrain emotional responses, restoring reason and calm as a form of resistance to the outrage economy.
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.
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.
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