The wait is over—the official Oxford Word of the Year 2025 is rage bait.
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, the Oxford 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.
Oxford’s language experts shortlisted three contenders—rage bait, aura farming, and biohack—that reflect our conversations and preoccupations over the past year.