Engagement farming and the death of nuance

Once upon a time in a far away land, in a time now forgotten, engagement, in some ways, meant connection. 

Think about it: a like or comment was like a tiny little forehead kiss, a sign that someone out there actually cared about how you looked, how cute your cat was, or what you were saying. Now it kind of feels like a game of emotional bingo, the louder you shout, the more points you score.

The thing is, these days social platforms don’t reward truth, context, or care. They reward reaction. We’re living in a post Kanye-shock-value-world. Meaning, the more emotionally charged the content, whether it be outrage, irony, shock or amusement, the further it generally flies. Every algorithm has been quietly trained on this principle: if it makes you feel something fast, it’s good for business, baby.

Which has landed us here, in the age of engagement farming, which is basically a digital ecosystem optimised for arousal, not understanding. Nuance doesn’t trend, but outrage does, and irony, even more so.

The attention machine

The formula is simple: posts that make people mad, laugh, or roll their eyes get boosted. The platforms call it “engagement”; behavioural scientists call it reward conditioning. Users are nudged toward extremes because moderation doesn’t perform. Complexity doesn’t click. What started as somewhat of a ‘quirk’ of the algorithm has become the dominant tone of the internet. It’s like almost everything is either absurd or infuriating.

Creators farm outrage for clout; brands copy the format for reach. Even news outlets lean into “can you believe this?” framing just to stay visible. And then we have the marketers, ever adaptable, who saw the data and adjusted. Social teams were told to be “spicy,” “unhinged,” “playful” and campaign briefs started asking for “thumb-stopping hooks.” It feels as if the goal shifted from communicate to provoke.

And then, brands became performance artists.

You know what I mean, you’ve seen it. The fast-food chain tweeting like a feral intern or the skincare brand picking fights in the comments… and a special mention to the influencers building mini scandals for engagement (you know who you are). This style works… until it doesn’t. Because while provocation gets attention, it rarely earns affection.

It builds a kind of hollow intimacy, where people recognise you but don’t actually like you. That’s the thing about engagement farming: it’s extractive. It treats the audience like a resource to mine, not a community to nurture. When every post is designed to harvest clicks, not understanding, you’re not going to get too far in terms of ‘positive sentiment.’

The empathy gap

In this arms race for reactions, we lost the plot. The internet used to feel participatory, and now it feels god damn gladiatorial. Why? Because empathy slows things down, and the algorithm hates slow. It asks for context, reflection, sometimes even contradiction. Outrage asks for none of that for double the clicks.

For marketers, this is the empathy gap: the growing distance between what the algorithm rewards and what humans actually respond to. Platforms push us toward extremes; audiences crave something that feels real. All the while, the internet becomes everything but. Empathy is the long game because it doesn’t spike your metrics overnight, but instead, builds memory, loyalty, and trust - stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit neatly into an edgy, forgettable, 200-character post.

So, what can we do instead?

1. Measure differently. Stop optimising for engagement rate and start looking at engagement quality. Not just how many people reacted: who reacted, and why.

2. Context over controversy. Depth doesn’t have to mean dull. Long captions, storytelling threads, even admitting uncertainty, that’s the new rebellion.

3. Speak with texture. Humour and honesty can coexist. irony doesn’t have to erase empathy. the best content still feels human.

4. Choose longevity over virality. The internet’s memory is short, but trust accumulates quietly. It’s better to be respected slowly than shared instantly.

Engagement farming is what happens when entertainment replaces empathy as the dominant language of the internet. It’s profitable, but it’s not sustainable. People are tired of being baited. They want to be seen.

That’s the irony of engagement farming, it’s the fastest way to make people stop engaging. Womp womp.

-Sophie Randell, Writer