‘Rage bait’ named Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year

Oxford released a statement to announce the word of the year, and said that it 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 content."

Researchers said that the use of "rage bait" in 2025 has signaled that there is a "deeper shift in how we talk about attention—both how it is given and how it is sought after—engagement, and ethics online."

In the last 12 months, the rate at which the word is used has tripled. It has become "shorthand for content designed to elicit anger by being frustrating, offensive, or deliberately divisive in nature, and a mainstream term referenced in newsrooms across the world and discourse amongst content creators," Oxford said in the press release about the term.

President of Oxford Languages, Casper Grathwohl, said of the decision to choose the term for 2025, “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. 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. 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."

Grathwohl noted that the term that was awarded word of the year in 2024 was "brain rot," which refers to endlessly scrolling on social media or online. "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 behaviour," the Oxford Languages president said.