Why do we fall for rage bait

Rage bait was named as Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year.

As defined by Oxford, rage bait is “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account.”

Chances are high there are examples of rage bait content in everyone’s feeds. If not, a simple search will land some immediate examples.

QR 770 Calgary host Sarah Crosbie says her teen loves to rage bait her. So, during her weekly segment with Dr. Dan Devoe, PhD, associate professor of psychology at MRU, she asked him what it is that makes us so drawn to this kind of content.

“There’s a lot to unpack with rage bait,” says Devoe, explaining that brains are wired for survival. “And the internet is wired for engagement. When you collide those two systems together, kaboom!”

Anger, explains Devoe, “hijacks our fight or flight response. It’s going to spike that dopamine and activate the amygdala.”

The struggle, Crosbie says, is that there is so much rage bait online, which leads to it inundating feeds. Devoe agrees, adding that the algorithms feed into confirmation bias.

“Humans love information that proves that we’re right and when we get something that is contradictory to it, like rage bait, they’re going to weaponize that and you’re just going to engage with it.”

The more rage bait is engaged with, the more it arrives in feeds. Crosbie likens it to eating potato chips where you think “just one more.” But Devoe says it’s more like a virus.

“Anger online behaves exactly like a cold. One person coughs and everyone catches it.”

Nobody wants to live angrily, so how do we cope? According to Devoe, it’s twofold. Spending less time online could be beneficial. More realistically, it’s important not to follow any accounts that are known to post rage bait.

“Recognize where it is coming from. The algorithms that are being used are profitable and they are using your own emotions against you to make a profit.”