Speaking Honestly in a Rage-Bait World

Lately I feel like I have been completely pigeonholed by the algorithm. That is honestly why I am writing this blog post in the first place. I already know it is probably going to be buried. I am fully aware of that. And that reality frustrates me more than I can properly explain.

The internet has slowly turned into a cesspool of rage bait. Everything is designed to provoke anger, outrage, or some kind of emotional spike just to get attention. What really pains me is that if you want your voice to be even semi heard, you are almost forced to play that game. I hate that. I hate the tactics. But at the same time, there are things I need to get off my chest, and the only place I feel I can do that honestly is in a blog like this, even if it disappears into the void.

If I made a YouTube video about this, no one would watch it. Or maybe worse, a lot of people would watch it for the wrong reasons, and it would start pulling attention away from my martial arts content. And martial arts is the core of what I do. Social Gelo with Angelo was always meant to center on martial arts. That has never changed.

But here is the part that really gets to me. When I created Social Gelo with Angelo, I never said it was only about martial arts. From the very beginning, I said I wanted to talk about psychology, social science, and martial arts. I literally open the show by saying I am a surfer, a scientist, a martial artist, and more. That was the point. That was the vision.

Yet somehow, I feel stuck.

Not stuck because I lack ideas. Not because I cannot write. Not because I am unintelligent or uninspired. I feel stuck because social media and algorithms have trained both creators and audiences to stay inside neat little boxes. The moment I talk about something I truly believe in that falls outside martial arts, the system pushes me right back into that box.

I love martial arts. I will always love martial arts. But I am not only a martial artist. There are other things I think about deeply. There are other conversations I want to have. And it feels like the moment I try to step outside that lane, I am punished for it.

I would like to say that this does not have to be the case. I would like to believe people can move past this. But the truth is, it is up to you. You are the one who ultimately has the choice in what you engage with, what you amplify, and what you ignore.

This is also where I admit that I might just be idealistic. It is probably why I do not even talk about these things on my Facebook page. I have chosen to simply not react. Some people interpret that as silence. They assume I am silent on social issues because I favor some outcome, or because I am afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. And that is actually neither of those things.

I am silent because my reaction only feeds and pushes someone else’s agenda.

I am being vague about this on purpose. There are large political powers at play that will gladly take advantage of all of us if given the chance. A lot of this is centered around things happening in the United States and around the world. Mind you, I live in Japan. My day to day life does not revolve around these conflicts. Most of the time, I am living peacefully and locally. But every once in a while, it comes up.

I once had a Japanese person ask me what I thought about Venezuela. My honest answer was that I really do not know, because I do not live there. If you are reading this, maybe you have very strong opinions about what happened there, whether it was right or wrong. I am not dismissing that. But at the end of the day, if I were to give my opinion, it would be the opinion of a guy living in the middle of Japan, living a relatively peaceful life, commenting on something happening far outside of his daily reality.

I do have opinions. Of course I do. But for me to broadcast them as if they carry weight or authority would just be hubris. It would be me pretending that my perspective somehow deserves influence over others.

And that leads me to the question that has become a splinter in my mind.

Who would that fucking benefit?

I fear that someone will grab my words and benefit from them politically. That bothers me to no end. Someone I do not know. Someone I did not vote for. Someone I have nothing to do with. The algorithm grabs my words, chews them up, spits them back out, and suddenly people are arguing in the comments. And somehow it all ends up favoring some political outcome that I genuinely do not care about.

That is the problem at its base.

All of this has built up into a very real, very visceral urge to just delete myself off social media entirely. I am not going to do that. At least not right now. But I fantasize about it more than I probably should. I am jealous of people who have walked away from social media and left almost no digital footprint behind.

I am jealous because they do not have to watch what social media has done to the people around them. I have seen kind, thoughtful people I once loved spending time with become volatile, reactionary, and completely politically driven. And I do not even know if they realize it is happening.

In their own minds, I think they believe they are being intellectual. They think posting strong opinions makes them informed or principled. What they do not seem to realize is that the moment you start reacting to news events, you are reacting to something that has already been curated for you. Carefully selected. Framed. Shaped by political and media machines to push a certain way of thinking.

If you do not believe me, look it up. Every country does this. Every single piece of news you consume is filtered through the country you live in. America is not unique. Japan is no different. Every country has a massive media machine behind it.

That was already true when Orwell wrote about it decades ago. Now social media has just amplified it.

I have always believed that people trap themselves more than anything else. We limit ourselves long before anyone else does. And if AI is a reflection of us as humans, then maybe it is just holding a mirror up to that behavior. AI is not forcing us into boxes. We built them ourselves. The algorithm just reinforces the walls.

Rage bait fits perfectly into that system. It feeds it. It rewards it. And I am pretty sure that when I eventually run this through an AI to generate a title, it is going to suggest something provocative or anger driven. Not because that is what I want, but because that is what works. That is what gets clicks. And that realization alone is exhausting.

So here we are.

I am writing a blog post that I am pretty sure maybe five people will read, just to get this off my chest. This is my actual opinion. What I am actually thinking. Not as a content creator, but as a social scientist. As someone who studied psychology for a decade and now watches people go online and confidently repeat psychological talking points after skimming a pop psychology article or taking a six month course.

Somehow, thanks to the internet, six months now equals eight years. Welcome to the internet.

All of this has led me to one conclusion. I need a space where I can actually say what I am thinking. But even that comes with caution. Branding is real. SEO is real. I am fully aware that putting this on my website might even hurt me in that regard. But at this point, fuck it. At least this way I can be honest.

Hopefully, if you were actually interested in how I process the world, you took the time to read this. If you did, this should give you a clearer idea of what my future plans are with Social Gelo with Angelo, and just as importantly, what are not my future plans with Social Gelo with Angelo.

I would love to talk more openly about psychology. I just have to be subtle about it. I already use psychological methods when I interview every guest, and that is not going to change. That part of the show will always be there, even if it stays in the background.

The reason I have leaned away from social issues is simple. I feel they will inevitably be weaponized by powers that are completely outside of my control. And I have no interest in being anybody’s bitch.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. And if you have not already, feel free to check out the Social Gelo with Angelo podcast. It is one hundred percent about martial arts, with a layer of psychology quietly running underneath it.

And if you have thoughts on this, feel free to leave a comment. I am genuinely curious how you see society right now and how you feel things are going.