"Rage bait" is the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year

Every dictionary has its word of the year now, but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) reigns supreme among categorisations of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue. And so its choice carries a certain weight. And, this year, that weight falls upon us like online fury: Rage bait is its word of the year, beating "aura farming" to the punch.

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".

With 2025's news cycle dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing, our experts noticed that the use of rage bait this year has evolved to signal 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 word has tripled in usage in the last 12 months.

The OED traces the term to Usenet, with the earliest reference in 2002. It first referred to drivers flashing their high beams, intentionally, but later evolved to describe viral content and, ultimately, to "critique entire networks of content" whose success is determined by algorithms mindlessly stoking and exploiting engagement metrics. Producing ragebait is therefore a "proven tactic" for success in modern media; compare to enshittification, chosen as word of the year in 2023 by the American Dialect Association.

Last year's OED pick was "brain rot," as you recall. Then, as now…

Isn't rage bait two words?

The Oxford Word of the Year can be a singular word or expression, which our lexicographers think of as a single unit of meaning.

And they point out that over time, it will go the way of clickbait.