This has been turned into art by professional media outlets. That's the whole point of almost every single article they publish - the more people they can outrage or offend, the more people read and thus the more ad money flows in.

> It is very disheartening when you take the time to write something thoughtful and you get no response at all.

Scott Alexander explored this topic in [0]. He also laments the fact that the posts he considers most valuable are read the least, while his most controversial ones are also the most popular. He even has a nice graph of it[1].

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

[1] - http://slatestarcodex.com/blog_images/sschits.png