Why Hate-Creeping On Twitter Will Come Back to Bite You

The rush is probably outweighed by side effects like anger, jealousy, and lingering resentment. So be nice.

Photo by Tayler Smith. Prop Styling by Caroline Dorn

Fans of The Bachelor love to talk about the contestants they hate. “Who do you follow in Bachelor nation even though they make your soul hurt and your eyes water and your hope for humanity dissolve?” writes u/bachninja on the popular r/thebachelor subreddit. “Mine is AshLee. The commentary is astounding. My brain. Why do I do it.”

“Yes. Omg. She seems to do absolutely nothing besides be incredibly vapid and have 8,000 ‘live’ posts a day. It doesn’t appear she has any friends or family that she hangs out with on a consistent basis,” responds u/lovemyreps. “That said, I still watch all of her lives. Same question as you: WHY do I do this to myself???? 🤷‍♀️”

It’s an excellent question. Why do we do it? Almost everyone I know hate-reads or hate-follows someone or something, whether by checking up on old friends or coworkers with whom things went up in flames or reading articles on terrible news sites, fully aware that the only real outcome of either of these activities is feeling irritated, angry, and even kind of depressed.

The answer, for better or for worse, is that it appeals to the insecure, anxious side of our personalities that need an occasional reminder that at least we’re not as bad off as that loser.

Of course, this isn’t very nice, and it doesn’t really do anything for us in the long run. The rush we crave from witnessing our worst enemy’s pathetic behavior will likely be accompanied by anger, lingering resentment, or jealousy — negative feelings that are likely to override whatever small, positive emotional gains we may have experienced from the hate-creeping.

One of the few studies on this phenomenon, conducted in 2016, found that this behavior is very common: 61% of the 305 college-aged participants were Facebook friends with people they disliked, and a full 85% of them read the Facebook posts of people they disliked, even though they found the posts annoying. According to Megan Vendemia, an assistant professor of communication studies at Chapman University in California and one of the study’s authors, this behavior…