'Rage bait' named Oxford word of the year 2025 amid rising online outrage

Oxford University Press has announced "rage bait" as its Word of the Year for 2025, following a significant rise in its use and public recognition. The term was chosen from a shortlist of three expressions, including rage bait, aura farming, and biohack, after more than 30,000 people voted over three days.

Oxford’s language experts made the final selection by assessing public sentiment, voting patterns, and linguistic data.

Oxford defines rage bait as "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted to increase traffic or engagement".

According to researchers, its use has tripled in the past year, reflecting a shift in how people discuss attention, online ethics, and digital behaviour.

The term first appeared in 2002 on Usenet, where it described the irritation triggered by a motorist flashing their lights to overtake. It later evolved into internet slang referencing viral posts, often used critically to describe the broader systems that shape what appears online.

Today, rage bait is widely used in newsrooms and by content creators as shorthand for deliberately divisive material designed to provoke anger, often to boost engagement.

Oxford notes that the phenomenon has also fed into practices such as rage farming, where creators repeatedly seed provocative content, sometimes misinformation or conspiracy-driven material, to build outrage over time.

Although made up of two separate words, Oxford considers rage bait a single lexical unit. The expression combines rage, meaning a violent outburst of anger, and bait, originally referring to a tempting morsel.

Oxford’s experts say its rise underscores English’s flexibility in forming new compounds that capture contemporary realities.

President of Oxford Languages Casper Grathwohl said the prominence of the term highlights growing public awareness of online manipulation.

"The internet has shifted from capturing our curiosity to hijacking our emotions," he said, adding that rage bait reflects "the extremes of online culture" at a time when technology increasingly shapes human identity and behaviour.