India, Dec. 14 -- The Oxford Dictionary's "Word of the Year" 2025 is all about evoking emotions for engagement. Albeit negative ones.

"Rage bait", the new-age term that won over rivals "aura farming" and "biohack" to make it as "Word of the Year", denotes drawing out negative emotions in Tweeple -- provocation to polarisation, discord to anger and rage --- for manipulating online visibility and boosting social media engagement.

It aptly sums up a trend that spells a hijacking of emotions to leverage them for notching up followers.

Talking of hijacking, there is another abiding memory of 2025 --- the infamous Louvre heist ---- that stands out as a metaphor for other kinds of propensities to hijack or rob. The brazenness of the break-in ...