‘Rage bait’ is the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year : NPR

Take a deep breath and think of your happy place: “rage bait” is the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year.

After three days of online voting by more than 30,000 participants, Oxford University Press announced on Monday that “rage bait” is the official pick, beating out fellow shortlist nominees “aura farming” and “biohack.”

Defined as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive,” rage bait is “typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account,” according to Oxford’s definition.

When internet content produces a charged and negative emotional reaction from viewers, whether intentionally or not, it likely falls into the category of rage bait.

Oxford weighs in

Before the term “rage bait” entered the English lexicon around 2002, “the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks,” says Casper Grathwohl, president of the Oxford Languages division at Oxford University Press. “Now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond.”

In recent months, the word gained popularity after actress Jennifer Lawrence revealed that she has a secret TikTok account she uses to “get in fights” with strangers online.

Oxford calls rage bait “the internet’s most effective hook,” used to stimulate that ever-sensitive feeling of human anger existing — though perhaps in different forms — within us all.

This year, says Oxford, “has been a year defined by the transformation of humanity in a tech-driven world.”

They list deepfake celebrities, AI-generated influencers, and virtual companions as examples of tech seeping into our minds and, particularly, our emotions.

Is it possible to be “rage baited” by ChatGPT, or “rage bait” the chatbot itself? Perhaps now more than ever.

But it’s not just machine-learning technologies that can “rage bait” their users, or vice-versa. General social unrest and concerns over “digital wellbeing” caused usage of the word to spike in 2025, according to Oxford’s language experts.

“This significant increase speaks to a trend in media generally that rewards rage bait with engagement,” reads the “Why is it in our shortlist?“ Oxford brief for “rage bait.”

Personifying the 2025 shortlist 

For the past few years, Oxford Press has used social media to gather public opinion on its Word of the Year shortlist. This year, they intentionally used their Instagram page to run a digital campaign for its three shortlisted words.

“Rage bait” was personified as an anonymous individual wearing what appears to be an alien-esque lizard mask. “I’m glad your mad!” reads the blurb on its campaign poster, intentionally misspelled.

“Biohack” appeared as a robotic, green juice-drinking woman who asks viewers, “have you ever tried to edit your lifespan?” Played by London-based actor and model Brenda Finn, the personified “biohack” subtly hints at the exploding international popularity of plastic surgery and anti-aging regimens.

And “aura farming” — the “cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image” — appeared as a stylish influencer looking wistfully into the distance. If elected, aura farming’s “to-do list” includes banning fluorescent lighting, establishing universal basic income for microinfluencers, and teaching people how to ride a bike without hands: because “nobody should have to choose between reading 19th-century poetry and keeping their balance on two wheels.”

Is it any surprise that last year’s Word of the Year was “brainrot?”