Each year, language offers us a mirror, a way to understand what we have collectively lived through. The Oxford Word of the Year for 2025, “rage bait,” captures a cultural shift many of us feel in our bones long before we give it a name. The rise of rage bait is more than a linguistic trend – it reflects a deepening emotional pattern in our digital lives, one that intersects with mental health in ways too significant to ignore.

According to Oxford University Press, usage of the term has tripled over the last 12 months. Defined as online content deliberately crafted to provoke anger, frustration or moral outrage, rage bait now forms the backbone of many social media algorithms, not because it nourishes us, but because it keeps us clicking.

Unlike its older sibling “clickbait”, which lured

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