'Rage bait' is Oxford Dictionary's 2025 Word of the Year

Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2025 is another Gen Z slang. 

Oxford University Press announced "rage bait" as Oxford Word of the Year, which means “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.”

According to Casper Gathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, people are now aware of how the internet can manipulate their emotions to keep them engaged.

“The fact that the word rage bait exists and has seen such a dramatic surge in usage means we’re increasingly aware of the manipulation tactics we can be drawn into online. Before, the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks, but now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond,” he said.

The term "rage bait" originated in a 2002 Usenet post that "designated a particular type of driver reaction to being flashed at by another driver requesting to pass them, introducing the idea of deliberate agitation," per the OUP. It later evolved into an internet slang among the young who used it "to describe viral tweets, often to critique entire networks of content that determine what is posted online, like platforms, creators, and trends."

More than 30,000 people participated in an online vote to determine Oxford's Word of the Year for 2025. The winning word bested other terms like "aura farming" and "biohack."

"Brain rot" was Oxford's Word of the Year in 2024. It refers to the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state due to overconsumption of online content.