What does it mean? It is a word to describe “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive.”

How is it possible for us to name this horrible word as the word of the year? It is the kind of word, which needs no explanation.

Words are chosen on the basis of having a cultural or social significance backed by data. The objective is to encourage people to reflect on where one is as a culture, who one is at the moment through the lens of the words one uses. – Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford

An icon of infant Jesus stolen from a Belgian Nativity scene. This baby Jesus icon has been the center of a social media controversy because the all the faces in the Creche lack eyes, noses and mouths. The artist Victoria-Maria Geyer crafted the nativity scene characters of cloth in hope that the faithful from Japana to Namibia would see themselves in the soft fabrics lacking any identifying features. “Every catholic can identify themselves in the Biblical story of the birth of Christ,” she said.

Creches all over the world

Critics said that the cloth Christ does not represent the spirit of Christmas. However dear ones, I have seen Nativity Creches all over the world. The color of the characters in the creche is the color of the people of that country. Their features are also similar. In India, the Madonna wears a sari and in Peru, we have a black Madonna with Peruvian characteristics.

I do not want to digress, but when I first read about the characters in the creche with no features, I marveled at the creativity and the beauty of the concept. It was a wonderful way of inclusion of all people from different countries.

Coming back to rage bait, why can we not have words like love bait or trust bait as words of the year. Give it a thought, when we see something on social media, which features love, do we not feel a sense of happiness. Love is associated with so many thoughts, experiences and visuals. Similarly trust, have you observed how much one trusts others and oneself.

Rage bait makes me very sad, because when we see horrible news, it upsets our equilibrium and then this news travels even faster than a forest fire.

I am not goody two shoes but pause and think, let us make a promise to ourselves not to be baited by rage bait. Let us not be judgmental.

It is the time of Christmas Cheer, let us celebrate love, trust and faith in others and ourselves.

Aim Hrim Klim

AI pix with FLUX playground.