Rage Bait Crowned Oxford Word of the Year for 2025

Oxford Languages has named Rage Bait the Word of the Year for 2025, highlighting online tactics that provoke anger to boost engagement and conversation.

Social media feeds can trigger strong emotions, especially when posts are designed to provoke. Oxford Languages has named Rage Bait the Word of the Year for 2025, signaling a shift toward emotion-driven online manipulation. This article explains what rage bait is and why it matters to readers and creators alike.

What is rage bait?

Rage bait describes content crafted to spark anger, outrage, or frustration, in order to boost visibility, shares, and clicks. It often uses provocative, inflammatory, or insulting material to keep users scrolling and engaging. While similar to clickbait, rage bait aims to trigger a strong emotional response rather than mere curiosity.

Other shortlisted terms

Aura farming: The act of shaping a public image to convey confidence, charisma, or mystery through deliberate presentation.
Biohack: Strategies to improve physical or mental performance by changing diet, exercise, sleep, or using supplements and devices.

The public vote among readers and language experts determined the final winner. Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, noted the rise in rage bait use and its power to shape online behavior: the internet is increasingly steering responses by targeting emotions, not just curiosity. He described this as a natural evolution in the tech-driven culture shaping how we think and act online.

A woman on the phone in a cluttered bedroom

Last year, the Word of the Year was brain rot, a term that captures the mental drain of endless scrolling. Grathwohl noted that 2024 and 2025 share a similar pattern: outrage fuels engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure can exhaust the mind.

Other notable terms from 2025

Parasocial: A one-sided feeling of connection with a public figure you do not know personally, a term highlighted by the Cambridge Dictionary.
Vibe coding: Describing a product or service to artificial intelligence to generate design ideas rather than writing code manually, noted by the Collins Dictionary.

The 2025 shortlist shows how digital life continues to shape language as platforms evolve and new ideas emerge.

For language learners, these terms illustrate how online life shifts and how dictionaries keep pace with real-time changes in everyday speech.

Expert comment

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, explains that rage bait marks a shift in online behavior, with emotions guiding engagement rather than curiosity alone. He describes it as a natural turn in a tech-driven culture shaped by algorithms and online dynamics.

Short summary

Rage bait highlights a growing focus on emotion in online content, alongside other 2025 terms that reflect digital life. The selection underscores how anger can drive engagement and how algorithms amplify this effect. Being aware of these patterns helps readers understand today’s online language landscape.