Overview
- Oxford Languages reports that use of the term tripled over the past 12 months in its linguistic data.
- The phrase denotes content deliberately crafted to provoke anger in order to drive traffic or social interaction.
- Editors selected the term after analyzing corpus evidence and votes to capture a defining feature of 2025’s online discourse.
- Oxford Languages president Casper Grathwohl said people immediately understand the meaning and want to talk about it because many have encountered the tactic.
- Reporting describes a shift from curiosity-led clickbait to emotion-driven posts amplified by algorithms, a dynamic Oxford contrasted with last year’s choice, “brain rot.”