Rage bait
Saber Conectado, 16 December 2025.
Every year since 2004, the Oxford University Press announces the Oxford Dictionary Word of The Year. Oxford’s Dictionary’s Lexicographers analyse and compile words and expressions that convey general trends, behaviors and ultimately, the cultural movements of the designated year.
This year was the first time the Dictionary’s team opened the selection of the word for public participation and more than 30,000 people voted between three pre-selected words: aura-farming, biohack and rage bait.
Word of the year voting
The voting was directed through their instagram page @oxunipress and it was announced on December 1st, 2025. (Oxford Word of the Year 2025)
Rage bait definition
Rage bait (noun)
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 account (Oxford Word of the Year 2025).
Regarding the choice of rage bait as the word of the year, Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, declared:
The fact that the word rage bait exists and has seen such a dramatic surge in usage means we’re increasingly aware of the manipulation tactics we can be drawn into online. Before, the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks, but now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond (Nanji, 2025).
In addition to that, writer Melissa De Witte, from the Starnford Report, defined Rage bait as “the negative, vengeful cousin of clickbait” (Witte, 2025). Whereas clickbait aimed to call attention by presenting sensationalist, often misleading, titles to get attention and clicks in order to increase the source’s revenue, Rage bait content goes one step further: it’s mainly comprised of controversial, outrageous or disgusting social media posts with the main goal of eliciting an emotional response in the comments.
Media Studies professor Jamie Cohen contextualizes the nuances Between Click Bait and Rage Bait, also offering advice on how to avoid engaging with rage bait in this interview for CBS Morning:
Common rage bait posts often include “someone confidently stating or doing something outrageous, wrong, offensive, or gross” (Witte, 2025).
Examples
A real example of Rage bait can be found on controversial social media profiles such as @christifritz: This account constantly posts contradictory situations, as in the video where the couple decides “to buy a car for their four-year-old daughter”. The family goes to the car dealership, but there is no sign any car has been purchased.
Meanwhile, thousands of comments flood these posts with angered reactions, successfully falling victim to the Rage bait and consequently boosting the numbers on this account, making it stand out even more to the algorithm of the platform.
Source: @christifritz
In conclusion, the word reflects the ever-growing awareness of how the public perceive the polarization of views on the internet and how it affects interactions and reactions on social media platforms and even going beyond to influence people’s behaviors and political climate.
Other examples of rage bait in sentences (taken from Cambridge Dictionary):
1) Some of those police brutality articles are pure rage bait.
2) The rage-bait was so obvious it made them laugh out loud rather than descend into fury.
3) The AI-generated ragebait has been watched by millions of people.
EXTRA INFORMATION
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a historical dictionary that started being published in 1884. As a historical dictionary, it brings not only modern-day meanings of words,but also the history of individual words, sometimes from as far back as the 11th century. (Oxford English Dictionary)
REFERENCES
@christifritz TIKTOK. 10 Nov. 2023. Accessed: 15 Nov. 2025.
The Oxford Word of the Year 2025 is rage bait. Oxford University Press, 2025. Accessed: 15 Nov. 2025.
NANJI, Noor. ‘Rage bait’ named Oxford word of the year 2025. BBC News, 30 Nov. 2025. Accessed: 15 Nov. 2025.
RAGE BAIT. Cambridge Dictionary, 2025. Accessed: 15 Nov. 2025.
WITTE, Melissa De. Why we can’t stop clicking on rage bait. Stanford Report, 02 Dec. 2025. Accessed: 15 Nov. 2025.
