Good news for those whose blood pressure spikes while reading online news: the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary has named “rage bait” the 2025 Word of the Year!
According to analysis by Oxford University Press, the use of the term has tripled over the past 12 months.
It is defined as “online content intentionally created to incite anger or outrage by a provocative or offensive situation to people on social media.”
Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said the very existence of the term shows that people are becoming increasingly aware of the “manipulative tactics” used to capture their attention online.
“Once, the internet focused on attracting attention by arousing curiosity in exchange for clicks, but now we have seen a dramatic shift: it is capturing and influencing our emotions, as well as the way we react. It seems like a natural progression in an ongoing debate about what it means to be human in a world driven by technology and the extremes of online culture.”
He said that while last year's choice, "brain rot," described the mental fatigue from endless browsing, "rage bait" sheds light on content that is created specifically to incite anger and generate clicks.
Together, Grathwohl said, “they form a powerful cycle where anger drives engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted. These words don’t just describe trends; they reveal how digital platforms are reshaping the way we think and behave.”
While the term is being coined in 2025, Oxford University Press said that “rage bait” has been around since the turn of the millennium. It was first used online in a Usenet post in 2002, to describe the reaction of a driver who gets angry when another driver turns on their headlights to let them pass, introducing the idea of ??deliberate provocation.
The term then evolved into internet slang that “describes viral posts, often to criticize entire content networks that determine what is published online, such as platforms, creators, and trends.”
