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Oxford names ‘rage bait’ as Word of the Year for 2025
Rage bait is now embedded in global journalism and the lexicon of digital creators, with the tactic proving highly effective as outrage consistently generates clicks.
Rage bait is now embedded in global journalism and the lexicon of digital creators, with the tactic proving highly effective as outrage consistently generates clicks.
Oxford University Press has selected rage bait as the Word of the Year for 2025 after recording a threefold surge in its online usage, a rise that the publisher said reflects a wider shift in conversations around attention, engagement and online ethics. The term was chosen ahead of fellow shortlisted entries aura farming and biohack, signalling the growing cultural prominence of language shaped by digital behaviour.
Oxford defined rage bait as online content intentionally crafted to provoke anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive, typically deployed to drive traffic or boost engagement for a particular webpage or piece of social media content. Analysts at the publisher stated that its surge in usage highlights how central emotional manipulation has become to content strategies across platforms.
CONFIRMED: @OxUniPress has announced its shortlist for the Oxford Word of the Year 2025:
— University of Oxford (@UniofOxford) November 24, 2025
- Aura Farming
- Biohack
- Rage Bait
Voting runs from 24th to 27th November, with the winning word announced on 1st December.#OxfordWOTY pic.twitter.com/hVqbkGRltj
The phrase first surfaced on Usenet in 2002, initially describing a specific type of irritated driver reaction after being flashed by another motorist attempting to overtake, a usage that sowed the early idea of deliberate provocation. Over subsequent years, the term evolved into online slang, used to label viral posts and critique the wider ecosystem of platforms, creators and algorithm-driven trends that determine what gets circulated and rewarded on social media.
Rage bait is now embedded in global journalism and the lexicon of digital creators, with the tactic proving highly effective as outrage consistently generates clicks, particularly within performative political content. As social platforms continue to incentivise inflammatory material, observers noted that this has fuelled the rise of rage farming, a more deliberate strategy in which repeated rage-bait content is used to cultivate anger and drive engagement, often amplified by misinformation or conspiracy-led narratives.
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