Oxford University Press (OUP) has named ‘rage bait’ as the Oxford Word of the Year 2025, following a public vote that saw more than 30,000 people worldwide have their say over three days.
Three contenders — rage bait, aura farming, and biohack—were shortlisted by OUP's linguists to represent some of the attitudes and discussions that have influenced the past year. The winning term was decided by a mix of votes, sentiment of public commentary, and study 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 well-being, 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.
Defined as ‘online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account’, usage of rage bait increased threefold in the last 12 months.
What is the meaning of 'Rage Bait'?
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 Middle English times. 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 polarisation.
The emergence of rage bait as a standalone term highlights both the flexibility of the 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.
Usage of 'Rage Bait'
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.
Trend of 'Rage Bait'
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.
It’s also a proven tactic to drive engagement commonly seen in performative politics, and has developed into practices like rage-farming—a more consistently applied attempt to manipulate reactions and to build anger and engagement over time by seeding content with rage bait, particularly in the form of deliberate misinformation of conspiracy theory- based material—as social media algorithms began to reward provocative content.
Speaking about Oxford Word of the Year 2025, Casper Grathwohl, President, Oxford Languages, says, "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’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. 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."
"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. 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 behaviour."
"Year after year, it’s incredible to see the campaign spark curiosity, conversation, and—most importantly—participation. The Oxford Word of the Year invites us to pause and reflect on the forces shaping our collective language. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings."
About the Oxford Word of the Year campaign
In the fourth consecutive year, language enthusiasts were invited to have their say, and the shortlisted words were brought to life as official candidates in an election-style campaign. The three contenders—rage bait, aura farming, and biohack—canvassed for votes across individual social profiles and manifesto videos, telling their own stories about the impact they had on the year. Once the voting closed, language experts at OUP conducted a final, detailed analysis, considering corpus data, votes, and public commentary on the finalists, before naming the definitive Word of the Year for 2025.
The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that reflects a defining theme from the past twelve months, either having potential as a term of lasting cultural significance or providing a snapshot of society at a certain time. For over two decades, it has highlighted the language that has shaped conversations and reflected the cultural shifts, patterns, and preoccupations of a particular year.
Supported by evidence of real language usage, OUP’s experts track candidates throughout the year via a 26-billion-word corpus of global language data. Previous words chosen by OUP have included ‘selfie’ (2013), ‘climate emergency’ (2019), and ‘vax’ (2021). Since 2022, OUP has opened the selection process to the public, resulting in ‘goblin mode’ (2022), rizz (2023), and last year's winner, ‘brain rot’.
