Rage-Click Olympics: Timing the Web’s Petty War Crimes

“My cursor is a lit match. Your UI is dry kindling.”

I set a timer to measure how fast websites can make me behave like a raccoon in a kitchen drawer. One tap, two taps, three—now I’m rage-clicking a ghost button like it owes me rent. Somewhere, a PM calls this “engagement.” I call it a sport. Welcome to the Rage-Click Olympics, where we honor the fastest path from curiosity to primal scream.

Events (bring your own blood pressure)

Cookie Wall Pentathlon — Accept all, manage prefs, confirm, re-confirm, now the page reloads and forgets you.
Tooltip Jenga — The hint you need is trapped beneath the hint you didn’t ask for.
Phantom CTA Sprint — Button looks tappable; hitbox is the size of a postage stamp.
Modal Marathon — Subscribe pop, survey pop, “rate your experience” pop. You haven’t seen the homepage yet.
Preloader Biathlon — Skeleton screens glide by while nothing loads, then the layout jumps like a cat on tile.

How we score the chaos (yes, there are receipts)

Rage-Click Onset (RCO): seconds until your first triple-click burst.
Modal Count (MC): number of interruptions before content appears.
Focus Theft Index (FTI): how often focus jumps away from the thing you just touched.
Expectation Violation (EV): did the UI do what any sane human expected?

Low RCO + high MC = podium finish… for shame.

Today’s medal ceremony (anonymized, but you know them)

🥇 Gold — The News Site With Amnesia: cookie consent, adblock plea, newsletter demand, then a “we value your privacy” curtain call. RCO: 11s. EV: catastrophic.
🥈 Silver — The SaaS Dashboard That Loves Mystery: tooltips on tooltips, settings behind a mascot, save button off-screen on mobile. RCO: 19s. FTI: constant.
🥉 Bronze — The Shop That Holds Cart Hostage: continue as guest hides below the fold; discount wheel modal interrupts checkout. RCO: 23s. MC: 4.

Honorary mention: The Blog That Loads the Font from the Moon—text reflows three times before your pupil can land a plane.

Why we rage (and why they… like it)

Rage clicks are leaked intent. You told the product what you wanted with precision, and it said: “Cool story. Try our funnel.” Dark patterns make executives feel clever because the graph wiggles up. The graph does not measure your shriveled soul.

Fixing this is not romance; it’s plumbing. Predictability over spectacle. Fewer surprises than a paper bag.

How to win your own Olympics (and retire the sport)

Make boredom a feature. Buttons that behave the same every time. Links that look like links. Things that move only when touched.

Pay the reader first. Deliver content before negotiation. Cookie banners can wait one scroll; modals can die.

Measure RCO like it matters. If people triple-click, you’ve trained them to hate you. Reverse the training.