Believe It Or Not, Etiquette Still Matters
A lot has changed over the past few decades when it comes to how we interact with the world around us. As a culture, we have become more casual, more concise and more curt. We are increasingly drawn to conflict, whether real or perceived. The Oxford Word of the Year for 2025 is “rage bait”:
rage bait (noun): online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content.
Recently, a number of startups that were clearly built with rage bait in mind were funded by prominent VCs, including Cluely (“cheat on everything”) and Chad (“the brainrot IDE”) — with plenty of opinions from the residents of Startupland™. A few weeks ago, Jordi Hays of TBPN published an excellent post on how we got to this point,
“To understand Chad IDE, Cluely, Icon, Friend, and the new class of Gen Z startups, you have to understand the online environment these founders grew up in. If you grew up on the internet and studied how and why certain people would regularly go viral, you know that making people mad has and always will be a highly effective way to get attention. The feedback loop is simple: 1) make something (product or ad) that makes people angry; 2) people comment/ share/ dunk; 3) because feeds are optimized to show posts with high engagement the most, you get more reach.”
He goes on to explain why he believes rage baiting ultimately won’t work as a product strategy. I’ll take it a step further: unless you’re specifically building in or around marketing, content, or certain subsegments of the direct-to-consumer market, it doesn’t even provide a short-term gain.
In other words, etiquette still matters.
Really…?
Like many former founders / early-stage investors, I interact with hundreds of people each week in marketing- and sales-related scenarios. I’m regularly:
On the receiving end of pitches (founders trying to raise money)
On the sidelines of pitches (founders asking for my feedback on both VC pitches and their own GTM)
On the periphery of pitches (doom scrolling social media like everyone else)
When rage bait first started to come to the forefront, I observed it mostly with idle curiosity. It seemed a pretty natural evolution of where we had been going culturally for some time. And for the most part, it remained squarely in the realm of marketing and content creators. Sure, a handful of creators leveraged their personas to build larger brands and companies, but none of this seemed to me all that different from the “villains” and “heels” of years past.
I started to pay more attention when rage bait began to creep into the realm of startups. First came the rage bait social media posts. Then bus stops and billboards. Before long, I started to see it in pitch decks and elevator pitches.
Here’s the thing: even in the early days of rage bait — when the approach seemed relatively novel (at least, to old guys like me) — the tactic didn’t come across differently from any other GTM approach. Except for one key aspect, which Jordi aptly noted:
“Rage baiting (whether at the marketing level or product level) is the most effective way to get people (who could be potential investors, customers, or team members) to actively pray for your downfall.”
So what does this have to do with etiquette?
Around the same time rage started to become more prominent, I noticed an uptick in what I’ll simply refer to as “rude” interactions with founders. I’m not talking about the handful of founders getting upset because they were rejected by a VC (that always happens). Rather, I’m referring to an increase in the number of interactions that were overly casual or unexpectedly disrespectful. It felt like there was more sarcasm, presumption and entitlement in many of my interactions — especially emails.
At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but before long I reached the conclusion that this was intentional (either that, or an unintended side effect of founders spending too much time in the realm of rage bait). In either case, a subset of founders seemed to be introducing a version of rage bait into their interactions with me. It was unmissable.
An increase in subtly condescending, overly casual introductions (“Yo lad,” “Hey bud,” etc.)
An increase in sarcasm in places it didn’t belong
Cold pitch emails clearly written as rage bait
The thing is, none of these worked (at least, not on me). If anything, they had the opposite effect. Requests I might have otherwise responded to went unanswered. PDFs I might have been inclined to open went to the trash.
After I announced next month’s Game On program, I received a flood of emails from founders. A non-insignificant percentage of those emails included some degree of rage bait, which got me thinking: what is my perception of people who use this as an intentional tactic?
Transactional
Short-term thinker
Fake
Untrustworthy
Unprofessional
…
Rage bait has become so widespread that it no longer resonates with me as shocking or creative or even worthy of a response. It’s honestly just lame.
If anything, I’ve found myself even more drawn to founders who exhibit basic etiquette and respect in their interactions. I’ve always been a sucker for a well-written cold email, but these days I’m even more likely to respond to emails that are simply polite.
The use of rage bait is still on the rise in Startupland™, but I suspect that it will be short lived. For now, just know that these days, showing deference, respect and etiquette in your interactions can make you stick out amongst a crowd. And always remember that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Know what I mean, bruh?