"Rage bait" as Word of the Year? It's a reason for hope

“Rage bait” as Word of the Year? It’s a reason for hope
Oxford Dictionary elevates the name of the MAGA addiction — the first step to a solution

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published December 5, 2025 6:45AM (EST)


(Salon) At first, I was sad to see that the linguist team at the Oxford English Dictionary had picked “rage bait” as the Word of the Year. But there’s no doubt it was the right choice.

As the wordsmiths explained in their Dec. 1 press release, rage bait is “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 content.” While they never use the term “MAGA,” there can be no doubt that they’re talking about the decentralized, mostly online propaganda that has created the movement and given so much power to Donald Trump.

A major form of rage bait is the endless stream of videos, photos, stories and memes — many outright fabricated — that are gobbled down by gullible Trump voters, keeping them in a constant fury at liberals and feminists and immigrants and queers. Their leaders’ goal is to keep them in a perpetual state of ignorance and hostility, ready to destroy American democracy just so they can stick it to these people they’ve been told to hate.

....(snip)....

MAGA’s rage bait is depressing to think about. But ultimately, I was heartened to see that Oxford made this choice because putting a name to a problem is often the first step toward solving it. While the term has been around for awhile, the Oxford team notes that its usage has increased threefold in the past year, showing that far larger numbers of people are starting to understand how folks are being brainwashed on social media and what effect it’s having on our politics. As experts told me for my recent article investigating the rage bait YouTube show “Whatever,” the best way to prevent the far-right brainwashing is for people to understand that they are being manipulated, so they are better equipped to resist the temptations of rage bait. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/05/rage-bait-as-word-of-the-year-its-a-reason-for-hope/