The story of That Vegan Teacher offers an instructive look at the incentives that shaped early short-form video culture. For nearly a year, TikTok’s recommendation engine rewarded Kadie Karen Diekmeyer’s hostility with astronomical engagement metrics. The outrage economy treated her moral confrontations as premium entertainment, drawing millions of curious onlookers into an endless cycle of reaction content.
Yet the same aggressive tactics that fueled her sudden rise made her long-term survival impossible. By substituting meaningful advocacy with targeted harassment, Diekmeyer damaged the broader public perception of animal welfare reform while rendering herself toxic to the platforms that hosted her. Her trajectory stands as a textbook example of rage-baiting pushed past the point of platform tolerance, leaving behind an online footprint defined not by persuasion, but by expulsion.
