Why and how ‘rage bait’ became Oxford’s Word of the Year 2025: Explained

How ‘rage bait’ became Oxford’s Word of the Year 2025: Explained

Oxford University Press has declared “rage bait” the Word of the Year 2025, capturing the rising unease around inflammatory content dominating digital spaces. To understand what propelled this phrase from internet chatter to a globally significant linguistic marker, we spoke exclusively with Jonathan Dent, Senior Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), one of the key people behind the selection.

In this exclusive conversation with Moneycontrol.com, Dent offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how Oxford tracks linguistic trends, how online culture is reshaping English, and why “rage bait” perfectly reflects the digital mood of 2025.

According to Dent, the dominance of rage bait was evident from the outset. “Right from the start of our selection process, rage bait stood out,” he says. “It showed a marked increase in usage in 2025 compared to 2024 and it spoke to some of the social and cultural preoccupations of the past year. Finally, it really got people fired up in the online vote on our shortlist, where it was a clear winner.”

The data echoed public sentiment. Dent explains that the term saw a threefold surge in usage, peaking in the summer and continuing to climb as the year progressed. Though the earliest record dates back to 2002, describing a driver who enjoyed antagonizing others, today’s meaning is overwhelmingly rooted in digital behaviour.

For Dent, the rise of rage bait is not merely linguistic. It is social, psychological, and political, a window into the ecosystem we inhabit. “The increased usage that we've seen for the term rage bait this year reflects renewed discussions (and unease) about the way in which engagement-based algorithms can lead to the promotion and reward of inflammatory or divisive content, misinformation, and conspiracy theories,” he explains.

The word’s ascent coincides with growing public concern over digital wellbeing, aggressive online discourse, and a global push to regulate what people see on their screens. Dent notes that all three shortlisted terms - rage bait, biohack, and aura farming, capture society’s search for control in a world that feels increasingly chaotic, whether that means controlling one’s audience, one’s body, or one's online persona.

Recent winners like goblin mode, rizz, and brain rot show that vocabulary now travels from niche online groups to mainstream conversation at lightning speed. But Dent stresses that digital acceleration simply amplifies a very old pattern.

“Youth culture and other specific subcultures have always been drivers of linguistic innovation in English,” he says. Online spaces have merely turbocharged their influence. What once took months or years to permeate mainstream conversation now happens “almost instantaneously.”

Oxford’s Word of the Year has evolved into a cultural event, with manifesto videos, public campaigns, and massive global voting. Dent describes it as a deliberate push toward transparency and engagement.

“Our move to public voting in 2022 was an opportunity to open up the debate and allow the public to discuss potential candidates before the final choice,” he says. The playful, theatrical videos, which personify each shortlisted word, were designed “to evoke the words themselves, to embody them, literally, and to get people talking.”

Behind the scenes, the criteria remain rigorous: a sustained and statistically significant rise in usage, relevance to global conversations, cultural reach, and linguistic staying power.

Dent is careful not to overstate the influence of the title.

“It would be pointless and disingenuous to suggest that choosing a word or phrase as Word of the Year didn't raise its profile,” he says. But whether it lasts is another matter entirely. “If it doesn't maintain increased usage, that doesn't mean it wasn't a relevant and worthwhile choice… If it does continue to be widely used, it’s a sign that speakers found it useful and it was likely to stick around even without the recognition.”

For now, rage bait is still on the ascent, fuelled by a world where outrage is currency.

Asked whether 2026 trends are already emerging, Dent is cautious. “It's too early to know what might happen in 2026… I wouldn’t like to second-guess what trends we'll be seeing,” he says, noting how global events, like Covid-19, can reshape language overnight.

And as for his personal favourite among the finalists? Dent laughs off the idea. “As a lexicographer… it's hard to have favourites. Almost every word has distinctive features. Do I have a favourite among the finalists? No. But I do think rage bait is a very worthy winner.”

Rage bait becoming Oxford’s Word of the Year 2025 feels fitting, not because it’s trendy, but because it distills the emotional, algorithmic, and societal pressures of modern life into two sharp syllables.

In an age when engagement often outweighs accuracy, and outrage spreads faster than truth, the word forces us to reckon with our own participation in the cycle.

As Dent’s insights reveal, the story of rage bait is ultimately the story of us, the users, the creators, the consumers, and the unwilling amplifiers of an increasingly reactive internet.