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i know neocities wont tank this post if im more direct about it, so i wont be as vague as the spacehell moderators wanted me to be about it. theres been a few accounts on there (panini, deadgrl, and the now-suspended silliari) that repeatedly made it to the top blogs, and (as you can probably tell by the title) they were ragebait accounts who were all most likely the same person. i'm not gonna rample about why i think so (though i do have my reasons), because this post is mainly about the type of ragebait content they posted. while the majority of it was just "cooler than you iconic mean girl" stuff, which i dont really have any issue with, a good chunk of it was just homophobia- and ragebait or not, it's still bad.

in recent days, theres been a rise in people making rude or bigoted things as ragebait. call me a fool for getting mad at it, but im afraid that, bait or not, these people are still rude bigots. if you want to see it as ragebait, then it's not clever ragebait- of course people are gonna be mad at you saying slurs or boiling people down to harmful stereotypes. but whether or not you consider it genuine ragebait, it's still opening up the opportunity of plausible deniability for people who are actually assholes and bigots. there are people who will say rude or bigoted things and backtrack to "it was a joke" or "youre literally falling for ragebait rn" as soon as they dont get an overwhelmingly positive response to it. meanwhile, anyone who agrees with them or finds what they said to be funny is getting hyped up by them, which is how you know it was never really ragebait at all. however, a lot of people will be told "it was just ragebait" and take that as objective fact- and they use it to excuse the person's poor behavior. speaking from experience, ive literally had someone say the hope i get assaulted in my messages, and when i shared it to say that this is not how we talk to people, someone watered it down to "just being ragebait." ragebait or not, nobody should be sending or recieving messages like that at all.

in conclusion, ragebait that's just bigotry or rude behavior is still bad, and it being ragebait doesnt make it less bad. in the best case, it's just uncreative and a sign the person isn't good at bait at all, because they stooped to being a bigoted jerk to do it. in the worst case, it's giving people who are actually bad people plausible deniability, because they can just lie about their actions being "ragebait" and get no consequence for them, and gradually push the limits of what can be said and written off as "just bait." just go back to saying "i put my milk before the cereal" or mispronouncing really easy words to pronounce on purpose instead, thanks.

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