Oxford Languages has crowned “rage bait” as its Word of the Year for 2025, following a public vote involving more than 30,000 participants. The choice reflects growing global concern over online manipulation, emotional exploitation, and the increasingly polarized nature of internet culture.
Rage bait is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account.”
The term beat out contenders such as aura farming and biohack, and its usage has reportedly tripled over the past year, signaling a significant shift in how online attention is sought and leveraged.
Linguists Weigh In
Oxford linguists say the rise of rage bait mirrors societal anxiety over the digital landscape. The term highlights creators’ deliberate strategies to provoke emotional responses to maximize engagement, rather than simply attract attention.
“2025’s news cycle, dominated by social unrest and debates over online content regulation, has amplified the use of rage bait,” Oxford Languages noted. “It signals a deeper shift in how we talk about attention, engagement, and ethics online.”
While related to clickbait, rage bait specifically targets outrage and discord, revealing a more manipulative layer of digital content creation. Oxford emphasizes that even as a two-word expression, rage bait functions as a single unit of meaning, showing how the English language evolves to capture contemporary phenomena.
The Bigger Picture
Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, said the term’s popularity underscores a stark reality of online life:
“The internet has shifted from sparking curiosity to hijacking and influencing our emotions. Rage bait, together with last year’s Word of the Year, brain rot, illustrates a cycle where outrage drives engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted.”
The selection of rage bait thus reflects not only linguistic evolution but a broader cultural reckoning. It draws attention to how outrage is manufactured, amplified, and monetized—and the emotional toll that cycle takes on users worldwide.