Doomscrolling has a new hazard.
Oxford University Press announced “rage bait” is its 2025 word of the year.
The prestigious publisher defines “rage bait” 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 content.”
The compound of the words “rage” and “bait” has seen a “three-fold increase” in usage over the last year, suggesting that “more people than ever are aware of the negative effects that online life can bring alongside all the positives,” the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary said.
The chosen contenders were intended to reflect the moods and conversations that have shaped this past year, and considering 2025’s contentious news cycle, OUP’s experts believe the proliferatoin of rage bait indicates a deeper shift in “how we talk about attention — both how it is given and how it is sought after,” engagement and online ethics.
“The fact that the word rage bait exists and has seen such a dramatic surge in usage means we’re increasingly aware of the manipulation tactics we can be drawn into online,” Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, said in a statement.
“Before, the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks, but now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond,” Grathwohl continued. “It feels like the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world—and the extremes of online culture.”
Interestingly, the first use of rage bait online had nothing to do with trolling social media. In a 2002 post on Usenet, the term was introduced in the context of automobile traffic — to “designate a particular type of driver reaction to being flashed at by another driver requesting to pass them.”
This use of rage bait ultimately definedthe term as a sort of deliberate agitation.
The two-syllable, open-compound word evolved into slang that’s now used online to describe viral posts, often to “critique entire networks of content that determine what is posted online.”
Now, it’s become shorthand for content that its specifically designed to evoke anger by being frustrating, offensive or deliberately divisive in nature.
Rage bait won over two other shortlisted terms: “aura farming” and “biohack.”
“Aura farming” refers to “cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a way intended subtly to convey an air of confidence, coolness, or mystique,” OED writes.
Meanwhile, the verb “biohack” suggests an “attempt to improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or wellbeing by altering one’s diet, exercise routine, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices.”
And for those thinking Oxford is rage baiting them by declaring two words to be the word of the year, the publisher explained that the word of the year can be either a singular word or an expression, which their lexicographers think of as a single unit of meaning.
“Rage bait is a compound of the words rage, meaning ‘a violent outburst of anger’, and bait, ‘an attractive morsel of food,’” they explained.
Rage bait as a standalone term highlights that two established words in the English language can be combined to give a more specific meaning in a certain context and create a single term that “resonates with the world we live in today.”
Last year, OUP named “brain rot” as the Oxford Word of the Year 2024, defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
“Where last year’s choice, brain rot, captured the mental drain of endless scrolling, rage bait shines a light on the content purposefully engineered to spark outrage and drive clicks,” Grathwohl said.
“And together, they form a powerful cycle where outrage sparks engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted. These words don’t just define trends; they reveal how digital platforms are reshaping our thinking and behavior.”
Meanwhile, Dictionary.com declared “6 7” is its word of the year for 2025.
“Perhaps the most defining feature of 67 is that it’s impossible to define,” the announcement read. “It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical.” Some people interpret it as “so-so” or “maybe this, maybe that,” and it’s typically paired with a shrug-like hand gesture where palms face up and move alternately. It’s also used as an exclamation.
The term “parasocial” was named Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 word of the year, referring to when a person feels like they have a relationship with a famous person, despite not knowing them personally.
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