Over the course of the last decade, social media algorithms have been challenged with rage baiting. Rage baiting is the human behavior to enrage or anger someone else simply for a response. While this has always been a human behavior, it was not monetizable. With YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, rage baiting is now an occupation.
The reason rage baiting strategy works on social media apps because viewers are sitting at home and want to be entertained. It is much easier to get someone to watch something when you can bring out the emotion of anger or rage.
Since around 2012, YouTube has not only adjusted their algorithms for more rage and anger, they have incentivized it by offering compensation in the form of ad revenue. If a 16 year old young man needs $75 to take a girl on a date he has a few options. He could go work at McDonalds for several hours. He could ask neighbors or locals to mow grass or do some work around the house. He could certainly do some type of gig job to come up with the cash. Or, he could simply create a rage baiting video, post it to YouTube or another social media outlet and make several hundred dollars. What do you think he is going to choose?
Some might ask, “why doesn’t he post a peaceful or calm video to make the money?” To go viral with peace or calmness it takes a lot of time and effort. In our testing, it is possible to go viral with a rage baiting video after only a handful of videos. If you want to go viral with a peaceful video of a cute animal, it could take several months or even years.
That was until recently. With the Walk for Peace starting in October 2025, many wondered how much exposure this “demonstration” would garner. For the first two months of the Walk for Peace, the exposure and reach was very minimal. Part of this was due to the fact that their photographer and “social media guru” were not with them, but part of it was the fact that social media algorithms prefer anger over peace.
That all changed very quickly after the events that happened in Minnesota in January 2026. When Americans were cooped up in their homes due to two intense winter snowstorms, the only thing they were seeing on short form video feeds were fellow Americans losing their lives. It was difficult to watch for anyone that simply wanted to live in a wonderful world.
Enter the Walk for Peace Monks hitting Georgia and South Carolina. If you were on Instagram during the month of January 2026, you saw the Walk for Peace Monks. They were everywhere. In our opinion, the social media companies made a concerted decision to not show Alex Pretti, Renee Good and the ICE protests. Instead, they opted to push peace and calm.
As the Walk for Peace Monks approached Washington, DC in early February 2026 their Instagram account was getting up to 250,000 likes per video or image post. The final walk into Washington, DC and the return to Fort Worth, Texas helped them receive over 1 million likes between those two famous videos.
Since the Walk for Peace ended, we have noticed there tends to be a more peaceful and calm algorithm that can quickly overtake your YouTube. Think birds chirping, the identification of rare species of plants and the most beautiful roads of Europe. We are seeing more and more content creators building large YouTube and Instagram followings because of their peaceful and calm content.
It would make sense that social media algorithms would have multiple algorithms based on topic or industry. As we have stated many times, the viewer of intense NFL hits is going to consume content very differently than a viewer that watches how an alligator can swim without make ripples in the water.
If you are a YouTube creator that has peaceful content, there is a good chance you have sen an uptick in views and subscribers if you post YouTube Shorts. The major algorithmic change that happened after January 2026 was for the YouTube Shorts Feed. While YouTube likely adjusted the desktop feed, we noticed a significant difference in the YouTube Shorts Feed.
In April of 2026, the YouTube Shorts Feed started pushing still Image posts. Not only is YouTube actively trying to calm users down, it is now amplifying content that is still. YouTube Image Posts work very well because most viewers are inundated with loud audio and fast moving videos. When they see a still picture of something calm, it is a different emotion invoked.
As we continue to move forward in this AI Algorithmic world, it is going to be interesting to see how the Youtube Calm and/or Peace algorithm continues to adjust. The Walk for Peace is over and there is a War in Iran. Now would be the time for YouTube and Google to crunch the data as much as possible to see what people truly want to watch.
While we are likely not out of the rage baiting era, young creators behavior will change if they can make $250 on a video of a duck jumping in the water versus only making $0.34 on a video trying to anger a convenience store employee. Money will always talk in America.
If you are a YouTube creator and you’d like to increase your engagement, likes and subscribers, reach out to us at jesse@wojdylosocialmedia.com. We can help you optimize the YouTube Shorts Feed to get more views and more subscribers as soon as today.
The Growth of the Walk for Peace on Instagram
As mentioned earlier, the Walk for Peace started in October 2025 but did not receive much fanfare. While there were Facebook groups and general peaceful people following the monks, it was not a viral mission until the monks reached Georgia and South Carolina.
On day 26, November 19th, 2025, one of the monks was struck by a vehicle and had to have his leg amputated. The distracted driver accident also injured a volunteer named Jesse. When word got out that one of the monks was struck by a motor vehicle, many wondered if the Walk for Peace would stop. It did not.
Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara remained resilient and continued on with 19 of the 20 monks that started the journey. As they approached Atlanta, it was known that the monks would be reunited with the monk that had his leg amputated. That particular monk lived in the Atlanta area. After the video of the reunion was released on New Years Eve 2026 (Day 67) it was the beginning of many viral moments to come.
Several people have asked us what caused the Walk for Peace Monks to go viral. It is as simple as this. Americans wanted to see other Americans caring for one another. In a time when federal agents were seen in confrontations with protesters, America was ready to see a police officer give a peaceful monk a bro hug.
It helped quite a bit that most government employees were incredibly kind to the monks. In fact, at least once every few weeks they make it a point to thank:
– Law Enforcement & First Responders: Sheriffs, Chiefs of Police, State Troopers, State Patrol, Correctional Officers, Chief of SWAT, FBI, Fire Departments, EMS, and Flight EMS
– Government Officials: State Representatives, Mayors, Congressmen, Chairwomen, and other distinguished officials
If you want virality on YouTube Shorts, find yourself in a position with a large group of people enjoying an event with police officers and sheriffs participating to make the event even more memorable. That is what the Walk for Peace offered. It offered a safety net for those that needed a safety net of peace in early 2026.
Can Peace Go Viral on YouTube Shorts?
Since COVID, it has become widely known that rage baiting is a quick way to make money online. Millions of people want to watch reaction videos. Reaction videos with anger and frustration do even better. That said, it may be the case that people are getting burnt out of the intense and anger driven videos.
As we know, the Walk for Peace did incredibly well on social media. It is going to be interesting to see if any other peace or hope organization can replicate something similar. In fact, it is shocking that no Buddhist Temples have started daily or weekly walks to start gaining bringing more awareness to their causes.
This is a behavior they are doing every day anyway so why not start at the Buddhist Temple and walk for 30 minutes in a different direction each day and take a few videos. After a few weeks of consistently uploading videos, the algorithm would realize there are millions of people that want to see peaceful content of people physically doing something for a cause.
If you have an organization of group that has a daily or weekly activity, publishing it on YouTube will build your audience. This will also give you an opportunity to learn more about how other people enjoy the same things you enjoy.