Rage bait named word of 2025 by Oxford University Press

8 December 2025

The term has been in use since 2002, and originally expressed a driver’s frustration towards another driver, who had indicated they wished to overtake them, by flashing their car headlights. Certain types of web content have seen the term’s context change somewhat:

Rage bait is defined 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 content”.

Rage bait of the frustrating variety can often be found on Threads, where posts typically say something like: “what’s just happened?”, or “I’m so over this”, without a shred of context. This leaves people to ask “what’s just happened where?”, or “you’re so over what?”

The posts might be senseless, but they get the engagement.

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