So What?

A lesson from the playground for dealing with rage bait

Have you ever been tempted to debate someone who throws an obvious piece of rage bait into the conversation?

Before you start assembling facts, checking sources and composing your carefully reasoned response, consider a lesson from the playgrounds of our youth—or maybe the first-year dorm room, when somebody said something stupid in full view of everyone.

So what?

Two words.

Then wait.

You haven’t agreed with them. You haven’t disagreed with them. You haven’t accepted their premise. You’ve simply asked them to explain why the thing they just threw into the room matters.

Consider a familiar example.

“She’s a Muslim.”

So what?

And stop.

Don’t explain religious freedom. Don’t point out that there are Muslims on their side too. Don’t launch into the hypocrisy of selectively caring about someone’s religion.

Make them finish the thought.

Why does it matter?

Because now something interesting has happened. The person who tossed out the rage bait has to decide whether there was actually an argument behind it.

Rage bait isn’t necessarily an argument

I think this is something we frequently get wrong.

We treat rage bait as though it were a poorly constructed argument waiting to be defeated by a better argument.

Often it isn’t an argument at all.

It’s a button.

Democrat. Muslim. Immigrant. Socialist. Woke. Communist. Whatever today’s word happens to be.

The purpose isn’t necessarily to communicate a coherent thought. It’s to trigger an association, produce anger, reinforce membership in the group and provoke a response.

And then we respond exactly as requested.

We research. We fact-check. We demonstrate the hypocrisy. We write four paragraphs explaining why the six words thrown at us are wrong.

They supplied the bait.

We supplied the debate.

Make them earn the debate

That’s what I like about “So what?”

It’s a filter.

If the response is another slogan, an insult, a meme, a conspiracy theory or a sudden change of subject, you have your answer.

There was no debate to be had.

Block and go.

You’ve invested two words.

But suppose the response is:

“I think it matters because…”

Okay.

Now we have something.

Maybe what follows is nonsense. Maybe it’s factually wrong. Maybe it’s offensive. Maybe after another thirty seconds you decide there is still nothing worth discussing.

Block and go.

But perhaps once in a very large number of these encounters, someone actually makes an argument worthy of the name.

Now you get to decide whether you want to engage.

The important part is that you remain in control of that decision.

The original rage bait was designed to take that control away from you—to choose the subject, provoke the emotion and make you respond.

“So what?” hands the burden right back.

Maybe the playground knew something

We had plenty of ways of dealing with stupid provocations when we were younger.

Bullshit.

Fuck off.

Who cares?

So what?

Most of them simply end the conversation.

But “So what?” does something slightly different.

It leaves the door cracked open.

It says: If there’s an actual thought behind what you just said, let’s hear it.

There is plenty of research showing that outrage and attacks on the other tribe spread exceptionally well on social media. The platforms reward the bait.

That doesn’t mean we have to reward the fisherman.

So the next time somebody drops an obvious piece of rage bait into your feed, don’t spend twenty minutes constructing the perfect rebuttal.

Try two words.

So what?

Then wait.

They will usually tell you whether they’re worth another two.