Oxford Declares ‘Rage Bait’ Word of Year, Celebrates Internet’s Emotional Junk Food
KEY POINTS
- •Oxford University Press named 'rage bait' the 2025 Word of the Year on December 1, 2024.
- •The term saw a three-fold increase in usage, highlighting online content designed to provoke outrage.
- •'Rage bait' beat 'aura farming' and 'biohack,' emphasizing society's obsession with manufactured anger.
- •The 2024 Word of the Year was 'brain rot,' showcasing a steady decline in digital mental health.
In a move that screams '2025 is peak internet,' Oxford University Press crowned 'rage bait' as its Word of the Year on December 1, 2024. This charming term—part 'rage,' part 'bait,' and all about online outrage-harvesting—jumped in usage three-fold this past year, apparently because humanity needed a word for deliberately annoying click-enticers. It edged out contenders like 'aura farming,' the art of pretending to be cool on purpose, and 'biohack,' AKA trying to optimize human performance with supplements and tech (because good old-fashioned anxiety wasn’t enough). Meanwhile, Oxford’s 2024 hotspot was 'brain rot,' so the trajectory is clear: welcome to the age of digital decay and fury.
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Oxford just crowned 'rage bait' the Word of the Year, officially validating your doomscrolling addiction as national sport.
If 'rage bait' keeps growing, soon our vocabularies will need therapy too.
'Aura farming' lost? Guess real influencers are just better at weaponizing your anger, not their charisma.
Source: Axios | Published: 11/30/2025 | Author: Rebecca Falconer
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