When someone scrolls on her/his cell phone, a reel or an image or a piece of news or personal opinion of a netizen pops up. While some of them make one feel good, others make the cell phone users feel sad. Although the person could not remember exactly what caused her/his mood swing, s/he rightly realises that an image or a video or a piece of news may have been designed to irritate her/him. In the online world, this sort of trap is called a Rage Bait.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines rage bait 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“. The Oxford University Press recently declared rage bait the Word of the Year 2025, citing a threefold surge in online usage.

The Oxford English Dictionary selects its Word of the Year based on significant usage, monitoring billions of words in its language corpus for words with new prominence, often reflecting major social or tech shifts. The process involves spotting words showing extraordinary growth and cultural relevance, highlighting how language evolves with our world, especially through digital media.

The word rage means intense, and often violent and uncontrollable, anger, while bait means a lure or enticement used to attract animals into a trap. The vast amount of content available online includes a significant amount of material designed to be provocative, inflammatory or deeply upsetting.

These contents are often created by an individual or an organisation to fulfill their vested interests. Individuals or organisations are not at all concerned about the impact of such contents on a person’s mind. Their sole purpose is to achieve their goals!

In a world where people spend hours on social media, such incidents take a toll on their mental health. Perhaps, the Oxford English Dictionary kept this in mind while selecting this phrase as the Word of the Year 2025. It seems that the move would help society to become aware of this particular issue.

Meanwhile,

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Facebook

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Twitter

Boundless Ocean of Politics on Linkedin

Contact us: kousdas@gmail.com

Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das