Rae Christine, also known as “The Green Dress Lady,” went viral on TikTok recently for criticizing the shoes she sees “the girlies” wearing in the club. This video brought on a flood of comments and replies–and a discourse on the nature of rage bait in viral content.
Christine, a publicist and content creator with 44.4k followers on TikTok, typically shares public relations and branding content. She averages around 100k views per video, with many uploads receiving less than 10k views.
The original “green dress” video, which has since been taken down, accumulated over 6 million and sparked a wave of controversy. Let’s break it down.
What Is Rage Bait?
Social media posts go viral for a few reasons. The content must be timely, culturally relevant, and evoke both a psychological response and social motivation. Rae Christine’s commentary on club attire meets the mark for viral content–and it has an edge. Whether intentional or not, her video is an example of rage bait.
Rage bait, simply put, is a technique used by content creators to spark more engagement and hack the algorithm. Creators post content that intentionally angers their audience, spurring them to comment, share and even make their own response posts.
Social media algorithms tend to promote posts that receive a lot of engagement, further increasing the potential to profit from a post. The more views, likes, and engagement a creator has, the more opportunities there are for ad revenue and sponsored content.
The Video
While Christine has removed the original video from her platform, it has been re-uploaded to other accounts.
The consequent public outcry had a significant impact on her life and online presence. After removing her original video, Christine stated in a follow-up post that she found it necessary to speak to her young nieces and nephews, who are also online, about the nature of bullying, as they witnessed the intense backlash she received.
The majority of the engagement was negative, but some people did come to her defense. However, the idea behind rage bait is that any publicity is good publicity. It is important to remember that social media algorithms make no distinction between the different kinds of engagement a post may receive.
While Christine maintains that she never meant to blow up, the incident did grow her following, and she has taken the opportunity to introduce herself and her content to her new influx of followers.
The Shoes In Question
Christine talked a big game about clubbing heels in her video before revealing her outfit for the night. So understandably, viewers were expecting to be blown away by Christine’s expert choice of footwear. Would they be sky-high stilettos? Platform pumps?
They weren’t, and most were disappointed with the white, buckled (and albeit pretty high) heeled sandals they saw instead. One user replied in her own video, comparing Christine’s shoes to “church shoes.”
This criticism was particularly popular. One user commented, “Not the church steppers 3000.” Another added, “baby, those are not club heels!!!! those were your Easter Sunday shoes.”
In a sarcastic response, another user showed people dressed in flat and low-heeled shoes outside an event and suggested that Christine would approve.
The controversy seems, in general, to be in good fun. After all, they’re just shoes, and Christine herself said that she’s “glad to have provided some content and some material” for those poking fun at her. Regardless of the intention, Christine’s unpopular opinion prompted people to either defend their choices in footwear or bash hers.
She’s How Old?
Rae Christine is 34, but according to her, you’d never guess it. “I know I don’t look my age,” she declares in her video. Seemingly innocuous and potentially sarcastic, this comment struck a nerve for a few reasons.
Generational divides are a major topic of debate among internet users. The feud between Gen Z and Millennials rages on following the wave of “ok boomer” memes that took over the virtual world a few years back.
Aging is a hot topic online as well. The popularity of Botox, fillers, and anti-aging products like Retinol are on the rise, and their prevalence in the media is widespread. Gen Z and Millennials are obsessed with staying youthful, and Gen Alpha is beginning to follow suit.
Though not as pressing as the shoe debacle, many users did make response posts regarding Christine’s perceived age.
Users expressed the same sentiment in the comment section. One user commented, “34? I’m almost 45 and thought she was my age.” Another chimed in with a brutal remark: “My manger said she looked 20 why I yelled, IN DOG YEARS! The way my coworkers were gaggedddddd. I def clocked it!”
Rage Bait In Action
Jesha Stevens is a perfect example of how age bait can be strategically used for consistent and significant platform growth. The New York City-based baker and content creator didn’t start out with rage-bait content. When she began on TikTok, her sourdough content performed decently well, receiving between 20 and 40 thousand views per post.
However, what tipped the scales for her content was a video about making a sourdough ice cream sandwich.
The video brought in five million views and thousands of positive comments. But there were also thousands of people irritated by her voice, the size of the ice cream sandwich, and the fact that she calls it “gut healthy.”
Instead of shying away from the backlash, Stevens leaned into rage bait by making more videos of this nature. She exaggerates her voice, creates even larger ice cream sandwiches, and purposefully reminds the audience how “gut-healthy” they are. She still produces sourdough and other baking-related content, but now with tens of thousands more followers.
It’s clear what Stevens is doing–and that it’s working. Whether you believe that Rae Christine really went viral by accident or if she’s just putting on a show is entirely up to you. Time will tell if and how she decides to use rage bait to her advantage as a creator.
