Oxford University Press announced its word of the 12 months for 2025.
After three days of voting by 30,000 people, OUP said “rage bait” is the word of the 12 months.
“Rage bait is a compound of the words rage, meaning “a violent outburst of anger,” and bait, “a beautiful morsel of food.”
The 2025 news cycle was “dominated by social unrest, debates concerning the regulation of online content, and concerns over digital wellbeing,” OUP said while announcing the choice.
Rage bait is concentrated “on evoking anger, discord, and polarization,” and use of the term has increased threefold within the last 12 months, in response to OUP language data.
This 12 months’s final vote got here right down to three shortlisted terms — rage bait, aura farming and biohack.
Aura farming refers back 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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Nevertheless it was the “dramatic surge in usage” that helped rage bait win out, said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages.
“Before, the web 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 the way we respond,” he said.
Rage bait follows the 2024 word of 12 months “brain rot,” which also speaks to the impact of the web on people’s emotions and cognitive abilities.
The term “brain rot” is anxious with the mental deterioration that comes with consuming low-quality, low-value content — particularly on the web and on social media.
“Together, they (rage bait and brain rot) form a robust cycle where outrage sparks engagement, algorithms amplify it, and constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted,” Grathwohl said.
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