‘Rage Bait’ Crowned Oxford’s Word of the Year
The Oxford Word of the Year for 2025 has been announced, and the winner is rage bait — a term that many social media users know all too well. After a public vote and analysis by Oxford’s language experts, it beat out aura farming and biohack to claim the top spot, with more than 30,000 people taking part in the selection process.
Rage bait refers to “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.” Its use has surged dramatically over the past year, reflecting ongoing discussions about digital wellbeing, content moderation, and how online platforms influence emotion and behaviour.
Though many people associate it with modern social media feeds, the term has been around longer than you would expect. Oxford University Press notes that it first appeared online in 2002, describing a driver who reacted aggressively after being flashed by another motorist. From there it became internet slang used to criticise viral posts or the ecosystems that encourage them.
Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, said its popularity highlights how aware people have become of “manipulation tactics” built into online environments. He explained that digital platforms used to focus on grabbing attention through curiosity, but now there's a marked shift toward provoking emotional responses. According to him, “it feels like the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world — and the extremes of online culture.”
Last year’s word, brain rot, captured the sluggish, burnt-out feeling that comes from endless scrolling. Grathwohl pointed out that both terms reveal a cycle in which anger fuels engagement, algorithms amplify reactions, and prolonged exposure takes a psychological toll. Together, he said, they “form a powerful cycle where outrage sparks engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted.”
The shortlist also reflected broader cultural conversations. Aura farming refers to building a charismatic or carefully curated public image, while biohacking is about optimising the body or mind through lifestyle changes or technology. But in a year full of online division and viral provocations, rage bait resonated most with voters and analysts alike.
Other dictionaries have also been announcing their picks: Cambridge went with parasocial, describing one-sided emotional connections to public figures — a nod to celebrity-fan dynamics — while Collins chose vibe coding, a term tied to using AI to build apps or websites without manually writing the codes yourself.
For Oxford, though, the term that defined the year was the one that captured the familiar spike of irritation many recognise from scrolling through their feeds. And as Grathwohl noted, the attention the campaign receives each year shows how closely language tracks the world we’re navigating.
