Outrage is Addictive—And Someone’s Cashing In on Yours
We are kept angry, reactive, and sure we’re right. Because that reaction is profitable and mutes our power.
I was cruising on my last run of the day when suddenly an out-of-control skier on my left missed a jump and wiped out in front of me. I swerved in time, but my outrage immediately went into overdrive. How irresponsible! They had no business being on this run! Crashing serves them right!
A little later, one of my ski buddies slowed to a stop beside me, shaking her head. “Did you see what happened to me? I tried to avoid a novice, hit two bumps, and lost it!”
My outrage vanished. Just like that. The reckless skier wasn’t some random idiot—it was my friend, doing her best. One second I was ready to judge. The next, I understood. My anger had been misdirected and pointless.
That ski outburst was a fleeting mistake, an instant of misplaced outrage that corrected itself when I got more information. But in today’s political and media landscape, we rarely get that second moment. Instead, we are kept in the first one—angry, reactive, and sure we’re right. Because that reaction is profitable and mutes our power.
The Outrage Cycle
You check the news—online, in print, or streaming—and instantly, you’re dropped into the latest crisis. Trump slashes funding. Inspectors General defy dismissal. Bird flu claims its first victim. Before you’ve even absorbed the details, you’re reacting. You lean in, seeking confirmation that others feel the same.
The system isn’t built for reflection—it’s built to keep you engaged, to keep you reacting, to ensure that your anger fuels the cycle.
If outrage didn’t feel good, we wouldn’t keep coming back for more. In some contexts, like watching sports, it’s even OK to enjoy it. Expressing anger—especially in a competitive or social context—delivers a neurochemical high. When anger is tied to an expectation, like winning an argument or exacting revenge, the brain rewards that behavior with a dopamine boost, making us feel engaged, energized, and righteous.
But when anger is regularly triggered, the consequences aren’t entertaining. The more we consume media that upsets us, the more we crave another conflict. Over time, we build tolerance, seeking out more extreme content just to get the same emotional payoff. The media’s variable and unpredictable rewards—outrage, validation, or a surge of likes—keep us hooked by using the same psychological tactic that keeps gamblers at the table.
And this is where outrage stops being just an emotion and becomes an addiction.
Who Profits From Your Anger?
Outrage has always existed, but never like this—never this constant, this profitable, this deliberately engineered to be a business. Like any successful industry, it has established brands and a stable supply chain. It has producers, distributors, and dealers, all incentivized to ensure the outrage never stops.
The producers are typically the political class. Whether Left or Right, fear and outrage keep voters engaged and donations flowing, making every issue an existential crisis. Both Republicans and Democrats framed this last election as the “last chance to save democracy.” Every interview becomes a chance to hype urgency and non-negotiable demands.
The distributors—predominantly media outlets—channel that anger-inducing commentary. News cycles thrive on conflict, not resolution, because ongoing fights keep audiences hooked and audience size determines revenue. Networks like Fox News and MSNBC focus more on who’s to blame than on what solutions exist, catering to specific ideological beliefs that keep viewers loyal to their emotional brand.
And the dealers hanging out on every digital corner? That’s social media—Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok et al. Platforms optimize for rage-based engagement because it drives ad revenue and that pleases Wall Street. Algorithms ensure the angriest voices get amplified. You may start out liking puppy videos, but soon you’re seething at “proof” that the Left hates America, or MAGA hates minorities, or everyone hates everyone else.
The Real Cost of Constant Outrage
Some outrage is merited. A billionaire’s nazi salute is neither comical nor harmless. An administration that openly and proudly violates the Constitution deserves no tolerance. But the danger of outrage addiction is that it makes us ineffective. It deceives us into believing we’re engaged while gradually making us feel powerless.
Every hour spent rage-posting on social media is an hour lost to fighting corruption or creating actual change. The algorithms feast on our outrage, transforming genuine anger into corporate profits while leaving us with the hollow satisfaction of having “done something.” In reality, we’re performing for an audience of machines, our emotions registering as data points and engagement metrics. Even if you have thousands of followers, without a clear call to action, your digital outrage merely feeds the cycle of addiction—spreading frustration while changing nothing
This constant state of agitation exacts a still deeper cost through burnout. Our brains aren’t wired for perpetual crisis mode. When every headline screams emergency, we eventually shut down as many of my friends and family members have. The system doesn’t care. It thrives on our exhaustion because tired, cynical people stop participating in ways that actually matter, and there’s always more fresh humans in the pipeline.
Perhaps most insidiously, outrage addiction makes us easier to manipulate. When we’re emotionally hijacked, we lose focus and stop thinking critically. Savvy political strategists know they can bait us into outrage to distract us from actual issues. If we’re upset over a deleted web page or trans athletes, we have less time and energy to fight damaging environmental rollbacks or outright grift masquerading as reform.
Can We Detox?
Escaping the outrage loop isn’t about willpower—it’s about detoxing from an engineered addiction. Like quitting smoking or breaking a sugar habit, it’s about retraining your brain. These three steps can help:
1. Recognize When You’re Being Played
Take back control by pausing before engaging. Let the rational side of your brain catchup with the emotional side.
Choose your battles. Resist letting others define what matters to you. Apply your energy and intellect where it will make the most difference.
2. Game the Algorithm
Carefully consider what you share in person or on any digital platform—does it spur effective action or does it feed the outrage machine?
Control what fuels you. Shift your media consumption toward analysis and solutions-based reporting rather than constant controversy. There’s a renaissance of longer form journalism and thoughtful commentary happening. Explore what’s out there.
Hack your feed. Unfollow outrage influencers. Mute rage-bait topics. Amplify rigorous, well-documented investigations and insightful expertise.
3. Replace the Rush With Something Real
Find hands-on ways to organize, volunteer, discuss, or build something meaningful. The posts I share each week are my way of creating content that helps me think rather than react.
Learn to sit with complexity. Not every issue has clear heros and villains. It’s not weak to say “I haven’t decided what I think yet.”
Know your threshold. Some people can engage with political content daily; others need regular breaks.
Breaking free doesn’t mean abandoning all political engagement—especially not now. It means being intentional about how, when, and why we engage. The system thrives on exhaustion—on making us feel like our only choices are constant outrage or total apathy. That’s a false choice.
Every time we pause before performative outrage, we’re not just protecting our mental health—we’re weakening an industry that profits from our division. The real power lies not in our capacity for anger, but in our ability to think deeply, unite across differences, and act purposefully.
Resisting manufactured outrage and passive submission isn’t just an act of independence—it’s an act of defiance. It chips away at the outrage industry’s control and turns you into their greatest threat: someone who refuses to be played and knows exactly how to fight back.
Your Turn
If this post resonated with you, these are actions you can take right now. Share it with another person. Click the “Leave a comment” button below and explain how you deal with outrage. Tell a friend how outrage addiction works and how they can resist. Do anything listed in the Can We Detox section. Baby steps are fine.
If you’re new here, an algorithm probably guided you. In that case, I recommend you confirm who I am, where my expertise lies, and what biases I may bring to my posts. If you want to read more, I’d suggest you start with my foundational post, The Hidden Influence of Branding in American Politics.
I’ve always been amazed at the progressive activist tendency to celebrate “rage,” believing that it somehow liberates self-perceived victims from the traumas perpetuated by their abusers. Your argument is an essential corrective, but after decades of propaganda advocating for rage as a response, it may be tough to persuade people that an enraged emotional response may feel like “healing,” but is ultimately disempowering. Not to mention psychically damaging.
100%!!
I’ve been way more selective about even diving into some NYT articles because just reading the subject lines can really get to me. I started following mushroom foragers in blue.skye because it quickly turned into a doom feed with lots of name callers. Feels so unproductive. I do an email scan in mid afternoon and look at Substack with coffee every morning.