I have bad news for my fellow rage baiters: We may be seeing the peak of the rage-bait bubble. I’m advising you to exit your rage-bait positions and go long on earnest posting through at least 2027.
My recommendation comes as “rage bait” has been named the Oxford Word of the Year for 2025, narrowly edging out runners-up “aura farming” and “biohack.” Last year’s word was “brain rot.” (Oxford is insisting the phrases “rage bait” and “brain rot” are two separate words, which, in my opinion, is its own form of rage bait!)
Rage bait, of course, is the tactic of purposely posting rage-inducing things just to garner attention or engagement, for fun and/or profit (Rage bait is an online-only term; saying unnecessarily provocative things in real life is just being an a-hole.) Ideally, a rage bait post is something you don’t even really believe — you’re just posting it to stir the pot and elicit a response.
I know something about rage bait. I was all in on rage baiting in the fall of 2024 on Threads. I had discovered that the algorithm of the nascent platform tended to favor content that got a lot of replies, and the easiest way to get a ton of replies was to say something so objectionably stupid and awful that strangers couldn’t help but yell at me in the replies. (A particularly successful post in this vein was saying that teachers should be responsible for buying school supplies for kids. People hated that!)
Not long before that, I interviewed a couple whose rage-bait TikTok videos I initially fell for (game recognize game). They’d post videos about gifting thousands of dollars worth of toys and an iPhone to their toddler, or going barefoot on the streets of Cleveland to experience the wellness trend of “grounding.” Getting lots of views by rage baiting turned out to be lucrative for them — and others — who found rage bait to be a smart way to garner a following on TikTok.
Meanwhile, on X, a longtime bastion of rage, the newish monetization element added by Elon Musk put a spotlight on what had been a whole new incentive structure for rage bait. It’s such a successful strategy that when X recently added a new transparency measure that shows you what country an account is based in, people noticed that some accounts that tweeted hyperpartisan things about US politics were apparently based in other countries. Baiting Americans was easy money!
But here’s the problem. Rage bait only fully works when it catches the element of surprise. If you know someone is rage-baiting, you know to ignore them.
And if now “rage baiting” is the word of the year, well, can a rage baiter still bait?
That’s why I’m calling it! It’s the peak of the rage-bait market; it’s time to pull out and move on. The rage fields have been salted; it’s time to let them lie fallow.
Instead, I am going long on earnest posting. Posting nice and thoughtful things, perhaps politely complimenting someone, or expressing gratitude. Eh, who am I kidding?
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