Scrolling, Seething, and Studying: How “Rage Bait” Wrecks Bar Prep

Oxford University Press just selected “rage bait” as its 2025 Oxford Word of the Year. That alone feels like, well, a little bit of rage bait.

But once you get past the eye-roll, it’s actually a useful concept for bar prep.

Oxford defines "rage bait" as online content deliberately designed to make you angry or offended so you’ll click, comment, and share. Usage of the term has tripled this year, which tells you how common this stuff has become.

If you’re studying for the bar exam, that matters more than you might think.

Source: https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/

What “Rage Bait” Really Is (and Why Oxford Chose It)

Oxford University Press says "rage bait" is the kind of online content crafted specifically to provoke outrage so it can ride the algorithmic wave to more traffic and engagement.

More specifically:

• It’s intentional. The goal isn’t thoughtful discussion; it’s emotional reaction.

  
  

• It’s engineered to be frustrating, unfair, or ridiculous.

  
  

• It thrives on algorithms that reward “engagement” without caring whether it’s healthy or helpful.

Oxford notes that “rage bait” beat out finalists like "aura farming" (carefully curating an online image to project a certain vibe) and "biohack" (tweaks to improve health or performance).

Taken together with last year’s Oxford Word of the Year, "brain rot," lexicographers see a pattern: We're moving from endless scrolling to content that actively pulls us into cycles of outrage and mental exhaustion.

If that sounds like your TikTok “For You” page, you’re not alone.

How "Rage Bait" Hijacks a Bar Prep Brain

Bar prep is already mentally demanding. After all, you're trying to:

• Learn and retain dense, technical rules.

  
  

• Practice applying those rules under severe time pressure.

  
  

• Manage anxiety and fatigue across months of study.

Now "drop rage" bait into that mix.

Psychology researchers and technology analysts have been pointing out for years that social media platforms reward strong emotions, especially anger, because angry people are more likely to comment, quote, share, and come back for more.

For bar prep, that means:

• Cognitive drain. Every time you get sucked into an “I can’t believe they posted that” spiral, you’re spending executive function on something that does not help you remember hearsay exceptions or the elements of larceny.

  
  

• Attention residue. When you close the app and go back to your outline, your brain is still replaying the outrage. That “residue” lowers your ability to focus deeply on the next task.

  
  

• Mood contagion. Constant exposure to anger, cynicism, and hot takes makes it easier to believe negative narratives about yourself and the bar exam: “Nobody passes,” “The system is rigged,” “Why even try?”

So "rage bait" doesn’t just waste time. It quietly rewires your emotional baseline in a way that’s very unfriendly to long-term, deliberate study.

Bar Prep "Rage Bait” in the Wild

Most "rage bait" isn’t about bar prep, but some of it might as well be.

Here are a few patterns you might recognize:

Score-flexing posts with a side of doom

“I studied 8 hours a day for 10 weeks, did 6,000 questions, and if you’re not doing that you’re not serious.”You don’t know their circumstances, prior GPA, or whether that schedule was even healthy. But you do feel the spike of panic.

Catastrophic one-sentence horror stories.

“My friend did everything right and still failed.” No context. No nuance. Just pure anxiety fuel.

Rants about how the bar exam is pointless, corrupt, or impossible

Are there important policy conversations to be had about the bar exam? Absolutely. But posts designed only to stoke outrage rarely include practical advice or evidence. They just leave you angrier and more hopeless.

Content that attacks you for caring

“If you’re studying more than [insert arbitrary number] hours, you’re being scammed.” Or, “If you buy a commercial course, you’re a sucker.

”These posts often flatten complex decisions into a false choice, just to trigger a fight in the comments.

Individually, any one of these might seem harmless. In a steady daily diet, they become their own kind of mental junk food.

Design an Anti-"Rage Bait" Plan for Bar Prep

Here are some practical ways to keep "rage bait"  from hijacking your bar prep:

Give your attention a job

Instead of “I’ll just scroll for a minute,” try, “I’m going to check my notifications for 5 minutes at lunch, and 10 minutes after I finish tonight’s set of questions.”

Put social media inside your bar prep schedule instead of letting it constantly interrupt it. When your attention has a clear job, it’s easier to notice when you’re slipping into outrage-scroll mode.

Curate for calm, not conflict

Use the aggression of the algorithm against itself. Mute, block, or “not interested” anything that reliably leaves you angry or hopeless, even if it’s technically about law or the bar exam.

Then deliberately follow accounts that offer practical advice, normalize struggle and growth, and celebrate effort and progress, not just perfect scores (like www.ProfessorTommy.tips!). 

Give yourself a “cool-down clause”

If a post makes you want to fire off a heated comment, screenshot, and send to five friends with “can you believe this?!,” that’s a sign that you've probably encountered "rage bait."

Borrow a rule from Contracts and build yourself a cool-down clause, like: “If I feel personally attacked by a post about studying, I will close the app and wait at least 10 minutes before I respond or share it.”

Most of the time, by the end of this cool-down period, you won’t want to respond at all. You’ll just want to get back to whatever actually moves the needle (like finishing that Evidence set).

Protect your first and last 30 minutes

The first and last 30 minutes of your day are prime real estate for your brain. Try to keep "rage bait out" of those windows.

In the morning, instead of waking up to notifications and hot takes, start with your schedule for the day, a short review session, or even a quick mindset check-in. At night, instead of going to bed with your mind full of angry threads, end with a short wrap-up (e.g., "What did I learn today?" or "What’s my first task tomorrow?")

That’s not about being perfect. Rather, it's about giving your brain at least some time each day that isn’t rented out to other people's outrage.

Choosing Your Own Word of the Year

Oxford’s Word of the Year tells us something about the culture we’re swimming in. “Rage bait” is a reminder that a lot of what grabs our attention online is designed to do exactly that.

But during bar prep, you get to choose a different guiding word for yourself, like steady, deliberate, prepared, or resilient.

Whatever you pick, let that word drive your choices more than the algorithm’s does. And let Oxford have "rage bait."