“Rage bait” is the Oxford English Dictionary word of the year. Apparently the fact that rage bait is actually two words didn’t stop the scholars from awarding their highest honor to a phrase that means, “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive.”
Just a few months earlier I had heard our Attorney General, Jeff Jackson, talk about rage bait and how social media and news sources purposefully lead with stories and headlines that cause one’s blood to boil. Apparently “rage baiting” is the modern version of the newspaper philosophy — “if it bleeds, it leads.”
I don’t know about you but I find the concept of rage-baiting or any other similar practice troubling and downright offensive, especially when it is used by major networks. Now I’m interested in the latest news from the Middle East or predictions about the newest hurricane, but to be intentionally manipulated into being angry or in a rage pushes some of my bad buttons. It reminds me of the young man who used to try to goad my teammates into a fist fight and then lure him outside into a gang of his buddies. (By the way, he picked on the wrong man one night, but that’s for another story.).
Human beings should not be considered as proper subjects for bait or being lured, news should be news not a device for manipulation.
This practice moves far beyond mere sensationalism; it is an ethical abdication. When news organizations, political figures, and social media platforms treat our collective anger as a profitable commodity, they poison the well of public discourse. Rage-baiting is designed not just to capture our attention, but to short-circuit our rational thought, replacing thoughtful consideration with reactive, polarized tribalism. It makes constructive dialogue impossible and ensures that we remain perpetually divided, fighting against carefully constructed phantom villains rather than addressing real issues.
My analogy to being physically lured into an ambush is apt, because in both cases, the goal is to hijack your emotional response for someone else’s gain—be it clicks, ad revenue, or political division. The only way to win this battle is to refuse the bait. We must reclaim our agency by consciously choosing what we consume and how we react. Our attention and our clicks are the currency fueling this destructive industry. We must stop paying for our own outrage and demand integrity, nuance, and responsible reporting over manufactured intensity.
Good thoughts!