As every year, Oxford University Press has chosen their word of the year. In 2025, the term “rage bait” won the race.
According to the definition, this is “online content that is deliberately designed to cause anger or outrage through frustration, provocation, or insults, and is typically posted to increase traffic to a particular website or social media or to increase interaction with that content.” This could include choosing excessively provocative titles on online news portals.
The attentive reader might also ask themselves: Isn’t the choice of “rage bait”, a term made up of two words, as the word of the year also a form of rage bait? Oxford University Press says no: “The Oxford Word of the Year can be a single word or expression that our lexicographers consider to be a single unit of meaning,” it explains.
As the term explains, “Rage Bait” was chosen as the word of the year because, according to Oxford University Press, “it has evolved this year and now signals a deeper shift in the way we talk about attention – both how it is given and how it is sought – about engagement and about ethics online.” (dab)
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