You know that feeling when you’re scrolling mindlessly on social media and suddenly stumble upon a post that instantly makes your blood boil? That’s exactly what Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2025 is all about.
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Oxford University Press revealed that the word of the year is “Rage bait,” which 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.”
“After three days of voting in which more than 30,000 people had their say, our experts chose rage bait after considering votes, the sentiment of public commentary, and their analysis of our lexical data,” it wrote.
According to the online dictionary, the word “rage bait” was first used online on Usenet in 2022 as a “way to designate a particular type of driver reaction to being flashed at by another driver requesting to pass them, introducing the idea of deliberate agitation.” Over the years, the internet slang has been used to describe content that is designed to elicit anger or outrage.
For instance, a person can be “ragebaited” when they’re shown a misleading post designed to make them upset, or when they click on an article only to discover that its headline was exaggerated. Both instances show a deliberate attempt to stir strong emotions among online audiences to drive engagement
Among the popular words that made it to Oxford’s shortlist are “aura farming” and “bio hack.”
In 2025, their word of the year was “brainrot.”
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