A Word Please: ‘Rage Bait’ is all the rage for logophiles

Not long ago, making people angry was a bad idea. Nowadays, rage is a hot commodity.

Time it right and you can build a whole media empire or political machine on some well-cultivated fury.

At the very least, you can get a lot of clicks on TikTok or whatever gizmo you use to turn anger into dollars.

But let’s face it, people can only rage at a limited number of things every day. And as more and more enragers compete for a limited pool of enragees’ finite rage resources, the successful anger pusher needs an edge.

And that (I assume) is part of the story of the 2025 Oxford University Press word of the year: rage bait.

If you’re P.O.’d that the word of the year is in fact two words, by all means, send money. But there’s a good explanation.

Lexicographers use the word “word” for any term that encompasses a single unit of meaning. So two-word words are words, which lets us have individual dictionary entries for phrasal verbs like “blow up,” nouns like “night owl” and other two-word combos.

“Rage bait” is defined, according to Oxford, as “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 account.”

To pick their annual winners, Oxford uses a combination of staff expertise and public input. Their goal is always to zero in on a word or term that best captures the current zeitgeist.

“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,” writes Casper Grathwol, Oxford’s president of Oxford Languages, on the publisher’s website. “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 it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond. It feels like the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world — and the extremes of online culture.”

I take heart in Grathwol’s words. Yes, it’s a bad thing that people out for money and power are dragging us around by the spleen, but at least we’re aware of it and have the vocabulary to talk about it.

For the win, “rage bait” beat out “aura farming,” which Oxford defines as “the cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a way intended subtly to convey confidence, coolness, or mystique.”

“Rage bait” also beat out “biohack,” a verb meaning “to attempt to improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or wellbeing by altering one’s diet, exercise routine, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices.”

As you might guess, some of Oxford’s picks stand the test of time, others don’t. For example, 2021’s word of the year was “vax,” which both captured 2021 and seems to be sticking around.

But 2022’s winner was “goblin mode” — a slang term that Oxford says is mostly used in the expressions “in goblin mode” or “to go goblin mode” and which is defined as a type of behavior that is “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”

I don’t recall hearing that even once, and I doubt I ever will.

“Rage bait,” however, is big business. And if language can help us better identify it, explain it and ultimately avoid it, the whole world will be better off.

— June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.