‘Rage bait’ is Oxford University Press’s 2025 word of the year

Oxford University Press announced its word of the year for 2025.

After three days of voting by 30,000 people, OUP said “rage bait” is the word of the year.

“Rage bait is a compound of the words rage, meaning “a violent outburst of anger,” and bait, “an attractive morsel of food.”

The 2025 news cycle was “dominated by social unrest, debates about the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing,” OUP said while announcing the decision.

Rage bait is focused “on evoking anger, discord, and polarization,” and use of the term has increased threefold in the last 12 months, according to OUP language data.

This year’s final vote came down to three shortlisted terms — rage bait, aura farming and biohack.

Aura farming refers to the cultivation of an “impressive, attractive or charismatic persona” by projecting an air confidence, while biohacking refers to optimizing one’s physical or mental health.

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But it was the “dramatic surge in usage” that helped rage bait win out, said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages.

“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,” he said.

Rage bait follows the 2024 word of year “brain rot,” which also speaks to the impact of the internet on people’s emotions and cognitive abilities.

The term “brain rot” is concerned with the mental deterioration that comes with consuming low-quality, low-value content — particularly on the internet and on social media.

“Together, they (rage bait and brain rot) form a powerful cycle where outrage sparks engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted,” Grathwohl said.

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