‘Rage bait’ is the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year : NPR

Take a deep breath and think about your happy place: “fury bait” is the Oxford word of 2025.

After three days of online voting by over 30,000 Oxford University Press members announced on Monday this 'rage bait' is the official choice, beating out other shortlisted nominees 'aura farming' and 'biohack'.

According to Oxford's definition, rage bait, defined as “online content deliberately designed to cause anger or outrage by being upsetting, provocative or offensive,” is “typically posted for the purpose of increasing traffic or interaction with a particular web page or social media account.”

When online content intentionally or unintentionally evokes an intense and negative emotional response in viewers, it likely falls into the category of rage bait.

Oxford weighs in

Before the term “rage bait” entered the English lexicon around 2002, “the Internet was focused on capturing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks,” says Kasper Grathwohl, president of Oxford languages ​​at Oxford University Press. “Now we're seeing a dramatic shift in what it captures and influences our emotions and how we react.”

The word has gained popularity in recent months after an actress Jennifer Lawrence exposed that she has a secret TikTok account that she uses to “fight” strangers online.

Oxford calls rage bait “the most effective hook on the Internet” used to stimulate the extremely sensitive feeling of human anger that exists – although perhaps in different forms – inside each of us.

This year, Oxford said, “was a year defined by the transformation of humanity in a technology-driven world.”

They list deepfake celebrities, Influential people created by artificial intelligenceAnd virtual comrades as examples of how technology penetrates our minds and especially our emotions.

Is it possible to rage ChatGPT or rage the chatbot itself? Perhaps now more than ever.

But not only machine learning technologies can “lure” their users, and vice versa. General social unrest and concerns about “digital wellbeing” have led to a sharp increase in the use of the word in 2025, according to language experts at Oxford.

“This significant increase speaks to a trend in the media that rewards rage bait for engagement,” reads “Why is this on our shortlist?“ Oxford briefs for “fury bait.”

Personification of the 2025 shortlist

Over the past few years, Oxford Press has used social media to gather public opinion on its Word of the Year shortlist. This year they deliberately used their Instagram page run a digital campaign for three shortlisted words.

“Rage Bait” was personified as an anonymous person wearing an alien-themed lizard mask. “I'm glad you're angry!” reads a blurb on a campaign poster that was deliberately misspelled.

“Biohack” looked like a robotic woman drinking green juice. which asks viewers, “Have you ever tried to change your life span?” The personified “biohack”, played by London-based actress and model Brenda Finn, subtly hints at Explosive international popularity of plastic surgery and anti-aging regimens.

And “aura farming” is “cultivating an impressive, attractive or charismatic personality or public image” – emerged as a stylish influencer looking dreamily into the distance. If elected, the “to-do list” for cultivating aura includes banning fluorescent lighting, establishing a universal basic income for micro-influencers, and teaching people how to ride a bike without arms: because “no one should have to choose between reading 19th-century poetry and balancing on two wheels.”

Is it any wonder that last year's word of the year Was there “brain rot”?