Listen to this article
Approximately 2 minutes
The audio version of this article was created using text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
Oxford University Press has named “ragebait” its word of the year, reflecting the Internet zeitgeist of 2025.
The phrase refers to online content that is “deliberately designed to cause anger or outrage by being upsetting, provocative or offensive” with the aim of driving traffic to a particular social media account, Oxford said in a statement.
“The person creating it will quite often enjoy millions of comments, shares and sometimes even likes,” lexicographer Susie Dent told the BBC.
This is a result of the algorithms used by social media companies: “Because while we love furry cats, we realize that we tend to engage more with negative content and content that actually provokes us.”
Rage Bait beat out two other contenders – “aura farming” and “biohack” – after public comment on a shortlist compiled by lexicographers at Oxford University Press.
“Aura farming” means cultivating a public image by presenting oneself “in a manner that is intended to subtly convey an air of confidence, composure, or mystery.” “Biohack” is defined as “an attempt to improve or optimize one's physical or mental performance, health, or longevity.”
The Word of the Year is chosen by Oxford University Press lexicographers, who analyze new and emerging words, as well as changes in the way language is used, to identify words that have “cultural significance”.
Oxford University Press, publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, has chosen a word of the year every year since 2004.
Past winners include “podcast” in 2005, “emoji” in 2015 and “goblin mode” in 2022, which profiled people who resisted returning to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The word “parasocial” describes a one-way connection a person has with someone they don't know – such as a celebrity, an influencer, a fictional character in a book, or even an artificially intelligent chatbot. According to University of Toronto Mississauga communications professor Bree McEwan, the term was coined in 1956 but has gained new relevance in 2025 among celebrity fan groups like the Swifties.
