New Delhi, Dec 1 (PTI) “Rage bait”, defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic or engagement with a particular web page or social media account”, has been named as word of the year for 2025 by Oxford University Press (OUP).
According to officials, the word was chosen following a public vote that saw more than 30,000 people worldwide have their say over three days.
The top three contenders for 2025 were — rage bait, aura farming and biohack.
The winning word was chosen by a combination of votes, sentiment of public commentary and analysis of OUP’s lexical data.
With the 2025 news cycle dominated by societal unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing, the use of rage bait has evolved this year to signal a deeper shift in how we talk about attention — both how it is given and how it is sought after — engagement, and ethics online.
Rage bait is a compound of the words “rage” (violent outburst of anger) and “bait” (an attractive morsel of food) — both well-established terms in English dating back to the Middle English times.
“As technology and artificial intelligence become ever more embedded into our daily lives-from deepfake celebrities and AI-generated influencers to virtual companions and dating platforms-there is s no denying that 2025 has been a year defined by questions around who we truly are; both online and offline.
“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,” said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages.
“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,” he added.
The OUP stated that while 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.
“Although a close parallel to the etymologically related clickbait — with a shared objective of encouraging online engagement and the potential to elicit annoyance — rage bait has a more specific focus on evoking anger, discord, and polarization.
“The emergence of rage bait as a standalone term highlights both the flexibility of English language, where two established words can be combined to give a more specific meaning in a particular context — in this case, online — and come together to create a term that speaks to the world today,” OUP said in a statement.
First used online in a posting on Usenet in 2002 as a way to designate a particular type of driver reaction to being flashed by another driver requesting to pass them, it introduced the idea of deliberate agitation. Rage bait then evolved into internet slang used to describe viral tweets — often to critique entire networks of content that determine what is posted online, like platforms, creators, and trends.
Since then, 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.
“Aura farming” is the 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.
“Bio-hack” is an attempt to improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or wellbeing by altering one’s diet, exercise routine, lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements or technological devices.
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