Oxford Dictionary just named “rage bait” its Word of the Year for 2025, which feels about right for a time when outrage has become the internet’s favorite currency.
The good news is the fact that we even have a term for it means we’re catching on. Those posts designed to make you furious and the takes so bad they seem almost engineered to provoke? It turns out they are engineered. The business model is simple: anger drives clicks, clicks drive revenue, and suddenly everyone’s competing to be the most infuriating voice in your feed.
Recognizing you’re being manipulated is only half the battle. The other half is deciding what you’re going to do about it. Put differently, pattern recognition is one thing. Changing that pattern is another.
The reality is we have more agency than we think. The real question isn’t just how to avoid rage bait. If you’re going to scroll, it’s what you choose to click on instead.
Awe Bait: The Antidote to Smallness
Rage bait makes everything feel urgent and personal. Awe bait does the opposite; it puts things in perspective.
Awe is what we experience when we encounter something vast that transcends our current understanding. It might be images from the James Webb telescope, time-lapse videos of natural phenomena, or stories of kindness. Research shows that experiencing awe reduces inflammation, increases generosity, and makes us feel more connected to others.
What makes awe particularly powerful is that it temporarily quiets the default mode network—the part of our brain responsible for self-focused thinking and rumination. When you’re watching storm clouds gather over the Grand Canyon or learning about the scale of the universe, you’re not thinking about that infuriating tweet or the person who cut you off in traffic.
Seek out content that reminds you the world is bigger, stranger, and more magnificent than your newsfeed suggests. Subscribe to channels featuring deep-sea exploration, astrophysics, or documentaries about ancient civilizations. Let yourself be regularly reminded of your place in something larger.
Beauty Bait: Rose Tint Your Attention
While rage bait hijacks our threat detection system, beauty bait engages an entirely different neural pathway—one that actually makes us feel better. When we encounter something genuinely beautiful, whether it’s an unexpected architectural detail, a perfectly composed photograph, or an elegant mathematical proof, our brains release dopamine without the cortisol spike that comes with outrage.
Beauty bait isn’t about escapism. It’s about refocusing our attention on what enriches rather than depletes us. Follow accounts that showcase design, nature photography, or art history. Seek out Instagram feeds of museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from botanical gardens, and from designers or architects. These aren’t guilty pleasures; they’re deliberate choices to feed your mind something nourishing.
The key is intention. You’re not passively consuming; you’re actively curating an environment that elevates rather than agitates.
Delight Bait: The Power of the Unexpected
Delight bait catches you off guard in the best possible way. It’s the video of the octopus changing colors in real time, the golden retriever cozying up to a newborn, the perfectly timed comedic moment, the child’s genuine reaction to seeing snow for the first time, the cleverly engineered solution to an everyday problem.
Unlike rage bait, which confirms our worst suspicions about the world, delight bait surprises us with evidence that life can be funny, clever, and unexpectedly wonderful. It activates our reward system without exploitation.
The magic of delight is that it’s incompatible with cynicism. You can’t simultaneously feel delighted and jaded. Delight breaks through our defensive posturing and reminds us that not everything has to be a battle.
Look for content creators who celebrate human ingenuity, capture moments of spontaneous joy, or showcase the absurd and whimsical. The account that documents interesting doors around the world. The one that shares satisfying engineering solutions. The feed dedicated to dogs experiencing things for the first time, or to ponies galloping toward bedtime.
@bobandtoffy Bedtime Race 🐎💚 #bedtimerace
If you consistently click on rage bait, you’ll only see more of it. But the reverse is also true. Engage with beauty, awe, and delight, and your feed will shift accordingly.
This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending difficult things don’t exist. It’s about recognizing that where we direct our attention shapes not just our mood but our entire orientation toward life. Rage bait trains us to see threats everywhere. Beauty, awe, and delight train us to notice what’s worth noticing.
Start small. Unfollow one account that consistently makes you angry. Follow one that consistently makes you think “wow” or “huh” or “that’s amazing.” Notice how you feel after ten minutes of scrolling. Adjust accordingly.
You have more control than you think. The bait is everywhere, but you get to choose which hook to bite.
Or Don’t Bite at All
Of course, there’s another even better option: put the screen away entirely. Close the app. Look up. Notice the actual world in front of you, the one that doesn’t come with an engagement algorithm attached.
Beauty, awe, and delight exist beyond your feed. They’re in the light coming through your window, the conversation with someone you love, the book you’ve been meaning to read, the walk you keep postponing. These experiences don’t need to be curated or optimized. They just need your presence.
Sometimes the best response to all the bait, rage or otherwise, is to simply stop fishing.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
