Oxford University Press has declared ‘rage bait’ as its 2025 Word of the Year, selecting the term that encapsulates the modern digital phenomenon of content specifically engineered to provoke anger and outrage for increased online engagement. The selection process incorporated both public voting and sophisticated analysis of lexical data from OUP’s extensive language corpus.
The winning term surpassed two other notable finalists: ‘aura farming,’ which describes the strategic cultivation of a charismatic personal image, and ‘biohack,’ referring to self-directed biological optimization through lifestyle and technological interventions. According to Oxford’s official definition, ‘rage bait’ constitutes ‘online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage through frustrating, provocative, or offensive material, typically posted to amplify web traffic or user interaction.’
Casper Grathwohl, President of OUP’s Languages Division, emphasized that these contemporary terms demonstrate how digital platforms are fundamentally transforming human cognition and behavior. ‘These selections represent a natural progression in our ongoing dialogue about humanity’s place within a technology-dominated world and the peculiar extremes of online culture,’ Grathwohl stated in an official release.
The democratic element of the selection process saw participation from over 30,000 global voters during a three-day voting window. This marks the fourth consecutive year incorporating public input in the final decision, though OUP experts simultaneously tracked actual usage patterns across a massive 30-billion-word database of global language data to validate the choice.
This year’s selection continues Oxford’s tradition of identifying terms that capture the cultural moment, following previous winners including 2023’s ‘rizz’ (denoting personal charm) and 2024’s ‘brain rot.’ The public voting mechanism began in 2022 when ‘goblin mode’ emerged victorious. Prior to this public involvement phase, Oxford’s lexicographers independently selected such culturally significant terms as ‘vax’ (2021), ‘climate emergency’ (2019), and ‘selfie’ (2013).