Rage bait is the latest addition to Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year for 2025, but if you keep reading, I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t be too angry about it.
The team at the Oxford Dictionary say the term describes content “deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage” and its use has tripled over the last 12 months. This speaks to a continuing trend on the Internet, of content not meant to elicit curiosity or to educate, but rather to create outrage.
With the emergence of infinite scroll short form content on apps like TikTok, what we view online becomes less of an active choice and more about whatever garners the strongest reaction. Content is delivered to us through algorithms constantly predicting what we might want to see next. Of course, app developers and content creators alike, understand that outrage is one of the surest ways to get someone to stop scrolling and interact.
How you’re left feeling after you’ve consumed that content though, is another story.
But the idea of content designed specifically for a reaction isn’t exactly new, the term clickbait has existed since the early years of the Internet (coined by blogger Jay Geiger in 2006). Similarly, content creation in the form of tabloids or magazines has always been a game of sensational headlines in the hopes of generating an audience.
Why is rage bait a sign of the times? A possible silver lining
However, I feel there is something distinctly new and hopeful in the viral popularity of the term rage bait that can offer a silver lining in our relationship to the Internet. It highlights an increased understanding of content designed specifically to be divisive and aggravating in hopes of driving engagement. That we’re finally becoming savvy to the manipulation tactics drawing us in online, and finding the language to call it out by declaring it rage bait.
What did Huw have to say?
I had a conversation on the topic and its relation to copywriting with my placement manager Huw, he emphasized the importance of understanding your audience. He showed me tone of voice guides and customer persona sheets, that help him and his writers have a clear unified writing style and an idea of who is reading their work.
In reference to rage bait, or what he jokingly refers to as the dark arts (a nod to unsportsmanlike play in football and other sports) Huw pointed out that there were difficult decisions to make when it came to harnessing negativity for a reaction.
Copywriters have to think carefully about how their words position the client in the eyes of a reader. Unlike other forms of content such as journalism, where the goal may be to receive the maximum number of hits in the hope of attracting or appeasing advertisers, copywriters want their audiences to stick around and do something. He understands that rage bait might get the audience onto a client’s page, but will they actually make a purchase or become emotionally invested in the company off the back of it?
Closing thoughts
In a world where audience attention has become currency in itself, the temptation for content creators is to harness the strongest (most negative) emotions in hopes of gaining traction.
Speaking to Huw, I could see the complexities in trying to project a client without falling into some of these more sensationalist tactics. But I think with the viral use of the term rage bait across the web, we see a growing understanding around the manipulation of our emotions, and it becomes clear that what we’re really searching for in this new digital age is truth and reliability.
By Freddie Graves
