What is 'rage bait' as Oxford University Press announces word of the year

You might not have heard of it, but if you regularly scroll through social media, there's a good chance you'll have experienced rage bait.

It's that time of year when the Oxford English Dictionary's word or phrase of the year is announced and this year, 'rage bait' has won the title.

The dictionary's publisher, the Oxford University Press, says the term was selected based on the fact its use has increased threefold in the last year, which probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who is chronically online.

Although it might sound like a bit of an odd choice, the theme is very much in keeping with 2024's word or phrase of the year, which was brain rot, referring to the mental drain of mindless scrolling on Instagram or TikTok.

What is rage bait?

Oxford University Press, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, defines rage bait as online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive.

The reason behind this kind of content is usually a bid to draw in people's attention and increase the number of people accessing that content.

One of the unfortunate truths of social media is that people are often more likely to interact with content when they feel triggered into doing so, whether that's to leave an angry comment or to share it in the group chat so they can vent about it. But when it comes to racking up views on TikTok, for example, the numbers will keep going up regardless of the reason why people are watching in the first place.

You might recognise the similarity between the term rage bait and the more well known 'clickbait,' which is where a provocative headline is used to lure a reader in. While there are definite similarities between the two, rage bait specifically aims to leave people feeling angry.

The difference was explained by Andrea Jones, who runs a marketing podcast, and told the BBC: "A hook reflects what's in that piece of content and comes from a place of trust, whereas rage-baiting content is designed to be manipulative."

Referring to how rage bait encourages people to engage more than other kinds of content, Jones added: "If we see a cat, we're like ‘oh, that's cute’ and scroll on. But if we see someone doing something obscene, we may type in the comments ‘this is terrible’, and that sort of comment is seen as a higher quality engagement by the algorithm.

"The more content a user creates the more engagement they get, the more that they get paid.

"And so, some creators will do anything to get more views, even if it is negative or inciting rage and anger in people, it leads to disengagement."