‘Rage bait’ named Oxford Word of the Year — What it is and why you should avoid ‘taking the bait’

Oxford University has named rage bait as its Word of the Year 2025.

Rage bait 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”.

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, noted that the very existence of the word demonstrates growing awareness of the manipulative tactics used to capture attention online.