The popular term for online content designed to provoke anger and drive engagement, Rage bait, has been named the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year. The choice reflects a year in which outrage-driven posts have caused viral controversies. It has also started a debate over how platforms push content into our feeds and dominate the headlines in everyday conversations.
Rage Bait becomes Oxford Word of the Year 2025
The Oxford team had shortlisted three contenders: rage bait, aura farming, and biohack. These were set up for the Word of the Year 2025. They opened the decision to have an input from the public, and more than 30,000 people voted over three days.
The final pick was made after the lexicographers weighed in public votes and analysed reader comments using their own language data. Oxford Languages notes that the use of rage bait has “tripled in usage in the last 12 months.”
But what exactly does the term mean? Oxford has summed it up as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage.” In practice, rage bait covers anything from deliberately provocative posts that upset a particular audience to coordinated streams of misleading material intended to inflame and spread fast.
The publisher says that 2025 saw an intensifying focus on the emotional side of attention. Earlier, the digital strategy revolved around chasing clicks with curiosity and novelty. But now, given that rage bait has been chosen by Oxford, it means a content shift towards influencing people’s emotions.
They say that language mirrors broader concerns about platforms. They flagged the ways they reward and spread outrage, calling attention to the “manipulation tactics” that users face online.
Oxford also placed rage bait in a wider context. Last year’s Word of the Year, “brain rot,” highlighted the mental drain of endless scrolling.
Originally reported by Preksha Sharma on Mandatory.
