Edition 85.

From outrage driving clicks, to leaf crunching (yes, it’s a thing) racking up millions of views.

Here are 5 brand bytes to inform and inspire you this week:

1. Word of the year: “rage bait.”

Swipe through any social media expert’s viral advice and you’ll hear the same playbook: post against the norm.

Make the hook provocative.

Get a reaction.

Spark outrage.

Rage bait.

Turns out, they weren’t wrong.

Oxford University Press has named “rage bait” its 2025 Word of the Year.

A public vote of more than 30,000 people say so.

The term, if you don’t already know, means this:

Content deliberately designed to provoke anger or outrage 😠 (or frankly, any reaction) in order to drive clicks and engagement.

Usage of the term has tripled in the past year.

Oxford notes a clear shift from curiosity-driven clicks to emotion-driven engagement, where algorithms reward provocation over substance.

And coming off 2024’s “brain rot,” the pattern is hard to ignore.

Our social feeds are not just shaping what we see, but how we feel, react, and behave —

One rage-fueled scroll at a time.

2. The anti-rage-bait play: one foot, one leaf.

Before you start brainstorming your best rage bait, consider the opposite end of the Internet.

On TikTok, an “OG leaf cruncher” posts daily videos of exactly one thing: a foot stepping on a leaf.

Think ASMR meets (unexpected) Fall nostalgia.

One 12 second crunch clip pulled in 28.5 million views!

Yahoo even stepped in to sponsor a post:

Why does it work?

It’s oddly satisfying.

Predictable.

Tactile.

Sometimes the creator even *ranks* each leaf crunch on a 1 to 10 scale.

Same format (and sneakers).

Massive reach.

Proof that simplicity, repetition, and calm still cut through, too.

3. When intention becomes content.

Let’s step away from the rage and the crunch, and explore one clever content play that crossed my inbox.

A reminder that the brand beauty is in the thoughtful details.

Here’s the example.

A new brand on my radar, Lore, sent an email entirely about their bottle design.

The subject line?

“Our bottle.”

No hype. No hooks. No rage bait.

Just intention.

“Every object we make is an expression of craft and connection,” the email opened — teasing the journey behind the vessel.

I was in.

The curves.

Their designer.

The fact that it took over 50 renders (!) to land on a bottle that truly matched the vision.

I clicked through the teaser email and landed on the full bottle story on their website.

(Cookies, tracked. Ads will be fed. Digital marketing funnel in motion here!)

But in that moment, all I was curious about: the story behind their bottle.

I found myself nodding, ooo-ing, aaa-ing.

(Blame the designer in me.)

Falling deeper into their brand story.

But the lesson for all of us is simple: There’s content hiding in the details of your process.

The decisions.

The iterations.

The care.

Whether you offer a physical product or a service (which in and of itself is an experience), those layers invite people closer to your brand.

Share them.

Every detail.

Fuel your (marketing) funnel.

4. AI superpowers: knowing what to ask.

A quick nod to last week’s note: AI can make us sharper.

Because I *just* averted a digital crisis...

Over the weekend, I added video to my web site.

It’s a 9-second teaser of client work.

But those nine seconds took a village, and AI:

• Motion templates via Envato
• Motion designer via Upwork
• And I designed my own storyboards in Figma

It all resulted in a beautiful and dynamic video — I love my mini portfolio reel!

​(You can preview it below my page header here.)​

But as of this morning, there was a problem.

The video only rendered correctly on *one* of three pages.

Instead of spiraling, I shared the HTML and CSS with ChatGPT and asked it to spot the issue.

Literally just copied and pasted the code from my Wordpress page builder.

A few prompts, some testing, an overnight pause, and the problem was solved.

Clean code.

Proper video rendering.

Live site.

While I do have front-end development and coding experience, this problem was beyond my depth.

The win was knowing what to source and how to ask AI.

AI became my emergency IT support, turning a multi-day blocker into a one-day fix 🤓

So, now:

Video’s up.

Site’s working.

Onto the next creative problem to solve.

Is this what Clark Kent feels like day in and day out?

The lesson: You don’t need to know everything.

You need to know how to diagnose, describe, and delegate.

AI can make you ‘super.’

5. The most copied brand play of December.

Spotify Wrapped has become a staple end-of-year tradition for music lovers worldwide.

Since 2016, it’s turned listening data into a personal highlight reel.

Top artists.

Top songs.

Total minutes streamed.

Q: Who was on your top, by the way?

Since then, the recap play has spread across nearly every category.

• Apple Music Replay
• Duolingo’s Year in Review
• Strava and Peloton stats
• Reddit Recap
• TikTok trends
• Wikipedia reads

Even Starbucks, Tinder, and PlayStation have joined in.

Different categories.

Same idea.

Personalized data, packaged for reflection and sharing.

The takeaway isn’t the feature.

It’s the feeling.

When brands turn usage into a story, data becomes memory.

And memory is sticky.

Brand win 💪

More brand bytes next Sunday at 5!