The Oxford Word of the Year 2025 Is… Rage Bait

After a shortlist that also included aura farming and biohack, more than 30,000 people cast their votes over three days, and the crown went to the word that defines our scrolling lives: posts, tweets, and reels designed to spark outrage, stoke debate, and, let’s be honest, rack up clicks.

Their decision was based not just on votes, but on public conversation and linguistic trends.

Rage bait is “online content deliberately designed to provoke anger or outrage—frustrating, offensive, or controversial—usually to drive clicks, shares, or engagement.”

With 2025 dominated by heated debates over online content, social unrest, and digital wellbeing, the use of rage bait has exploded, tripling in the past year.

The term first appeared on Usenet in 2002, describing the deliberate annoyance one driver caused another. Over time, it evolved into internet slang for viral posts that provoke outrage, often aimed at critiquing the platforms, creators, and trends that shape online discourse.

Today, rage bait is mainstream, referenced in newsrooms and social media alike. It’s also a core tactic in politics and digital content, giving rise to rage farming: a deliberate strategy to stoke anger and engagement over time, sometimes using misinformation or conspiracy-driven material.

Oxford doesn’t limit the Word of the Year to a single word. It can be an expression, as long as it functions as a single unit of meaning. Rage bait combines rage (anger) and bait (something tempting), forming a term that perfectly captures a modern, internet-age phenomenon.

Think of it as the cousin of clickbait, but with a sharper edge: designed specifically to spark anger and division rather than mere curiosity.

Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, explains:

Aura farming (n.)
looking effortlessly cool, confident, or charismatic online.

Biohack (v.)
Biohacking is about upgrading your body or mind, through diet, exercise, supplements, or tech. often to cheat age, fatigue, or poor focus.

It’s not an insult, a meme, or a buzzword. Rage bait is a lens on how we interact online, how algorithms shape behaviour, and how attention has become a commodity.

So next time you get sucked into a furious thread or a viral post that makes your blood boil, remember: it’s rage bait, and now it’s officially part of the English language.