You know that feeling when you read something online and it seems intentionally provocative, almost designed to provoke anger? You may have just encountered “anger bait,” content that is intentionally designed to elicit anger in order to increase engagement.
And the word is so widespread online that Oxford Dictionaries named “anger bait” its word of the year on Sunday.
Usage of the term has tripled this year, suggesting people are aware that they are being “drawn into increasingly polarizing debates and debates in response to the addictive nature of social media algorithms and outrageous content,” the UK-based dictionary said in a statement.
Almost all major dictionaries list internet-related words as their 2025 Words of the Year, focusing on the impact of technology on our daily lives and the language we use to describe it.
In some cases, anger fodder can be relatively harmless. It could be a recipe that contains unpleasant food combinations or something that would embarrass someone’s pet, partner, or sibling. But it has also entered political debates, where anger is used to raise the profile of politicians and provoke a series of reactions and backlash.
Collins Dictionary chose ‘vibecoding’, a form of software development that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to convert natural language into computer code, while Cambridge Dictionary chose ‘parasocial’, which refers to the relationships people form online with strangers, as the word of the year.
And Oxford University last year selected “Brain Rot” to “capture the mental exhaustion of endless scrolling,” Oxford Languages president Casper Grasswall said in a statement.
Taken together, anger feeding and brain corruption “create a powerful cycle where anger drives engagement, algorithms amplify it, and the constant exposure leaves us mentally exhausted,” Graswohl said.
“These words don’t just define trends, they reveal how digital platforms are reshaping thinking and behavior,” he added.
Oxford Dictionaries asked the public to choose the word of the year from a shortlist that also included “aura farming” and “biohack,” and posted parody videos on Instagram that conveyed the spirit of each word.
Aura farming is “the cultivation of a striking, charming, or charismatic personality by expressing oneself in a way that is intended to subtly convey an air of confidence, coolness, or mystery,” and was described as a man wearing a cardigan and carrying a tote bag, and was “always drinking matcha before finishing his experimental script.”
And biohacking is “an attempt to optimize one’s… health, longevity, and well-being by changing one’s diet, exercise habits, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices,” visualized as a person hooked up to a green IV drip, wearing an LED face mask, and ingesting “27 phytonutrient-rich plants” by 6:34 a.m.
Angry Bait, on the other hand, dripped milk and sugar all over the place while making tea, then picked his toenails and poured milk on himself.
