APAD: Rage Bait

Meaning:

   Online content deliberately created to provoke anger, offense, or outrage in

   users, aiming to drive engagement (likes, shares, comments, views) for

   traffic and revenue, often through provocative statements, shocking visuals

   (like messy homes), or political controversy, and was named Oxford's 2025

   Word of the Year due to its prevalence.

 

- google ai [edited]

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When I first saw "rage bait" at

https://www.wenxuecity.com/news/2025/12/01/126431807.html, I thought of the

Gandhi character in the 1982 eponymous movie who said

   

   The function of a civil resister is to provoke response. And we will continue

   to provoke until they respond, or they change the law. They are not in

   control -- we are. That is the strength of civil resistance.

 

I once lashed out at a rage-bait artist in a team meeting at my last gig. I

since learned the lesson and did not fall for a later trap, laid by another

colleague. Incidentally, both were Indian.