Rage bait has been crowned as the Word of the Year, 2025, by Oxford University Press. The phrase was chosen after a three-times surge was noted in its usage online, signaling “a deeper shift in how we talk about attention—both how it is given and how it is sought after—engagement, and ethics online.“The term is defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content”.The term triumphed aura farming and biohack, which were also shortlisted.The term rage bait first appeared on Usenet in 2002, where it referred to a specific kind of driver’s irritated reaction after being flashed by someone trying to overtake them—planting the seed for the idea of intentional provocation. Over time, the term shifted into online slang, used to describe viral posts on social media and to criticise the broader ecosystem of platforms, creators, and trends that shape what gets published and promoted online.It’s now a staple term in global journalism and in the vocabulary of online creators. The strategy works, too: outrage reliably boosts clicks, especially in the realm of performative politics. As social platforms increasingly reward inflammatory posts, the tactic has escalated into what’s known as rage-farming—a more systematic effort to cultivate anger and drive engagement by repeatedly planting rage-bait material, often wrapped in misinformation or conspiracy-fueled narratives.
