Rage bait is Word of the Year 2025

Rage bait has been named word of the year 2025 by the Oxford University Press.

Their definition of the phrase is that it describes “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.”¹

In other words, it means writing something online, especially on social media intended to cause an angry reaction and get you noticed. It’s the social media equivalent of a bored child during the Christmas holidays irritating their brother or sister until they react in a bad-tempered way and possibly get into trouble for your entertainment.

The reality is that, because of how social media algorithms work, rage baiting is likely to be successful in propelling your post more prominently into other people’s news feeds.

Some of the reasons we would like engagement are idolatrous. Engagement can be about giving us affirmation and significance through the numbers of views and likes and the comments made. If this is our motivation, it needs some deep reflection and at times repentance. But for some, especially Christians trying to be good witnesses, or for church leaders or Christian organisations, there is a legitimate desire to make the best of whatever piece of content you have produced to help the church or to proclaim some part of the gospel. 

The great challenge is to work out how to get a high level of engagement without ‘rage-bait’. Posts which may be edifying, truthful, informative and novel can go relatively unnoticed if they are not sufficiently engaging. So should Christians accept the reality of rage baiting and post things that they know are irritating to others, in order to up the level of engagement, under the guise that they are stimulating healthy dialogue?

The short answer is no – we are called to something better: ‘Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person.’ (Colossians 4:6) Unfortunately, plenty of Christians do engage in rage-raiting, whether they are aware of it, or not.

Within the Christian community, we have the clear biblical commands to love and bear with one another and to avoid stirring up division. We must also speak to those outside the church with gentleness and respect. Rage-baiting is neither of those.

So how might we get good engagement on social media, without being intentionally rude?

 Here are a couple of simple ideas:

1. Post something useful.

Think carefully about what you post. Why are you posting this? Is it to build others up or to build yourself up? Do you want to stimulate positive and healthy discussion or to provoke arguments? Is this the right forum for debate, especially on a complex topic? Is what I am posting helpful, novel and honouring to Christ?

2. Publicise good posts.

As social media users, go beyond being a spectator – don’t simply move on after you’ve read or watched something helpful. Instead, try and enhance the prospects of useful posts by liking and sharing.

1. ‘The Oxford Word of the Year 2025 is rage bait’, Oxford University Press: https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-is-rage-bait/. Accessed 8 December 2025. ↩︎