Zagotovki

rage-bait
noun | RAYJ-bayt
online content that is intentionally offensive or provocative
What does rage-bait mean?
Rage-bait (also spelled as ragebait and rage bait) is content (usually, but not always, found online) that tries to provoke anger or outrage, as a means of gaining attention or making money. The word is also used as a verb (“to make intentionally provocative or inflammatory statements”).
Rage-bait often refers to inflammatory content posted online for the purpose of gaining ad revenue through clicks, but it can also refer to trolling behavior, in which someone says or posts something offensive simply for the enjoyment of eliciting a strong reaction.
Examples of rage-bait
At its core, rage bait is backed by algorithms which seek to keep users scrolling, responding and consuming the content, which in turn results in the social media platform profiting. In this way outrage is monetised by the social media platforms.
— Shatadi Phoshoko, Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg, South Africa), 11 Jun. 2025
West’s song is a bleak cut even beyond the ragebait title.
— August Brown, The Los Angeles Times, 10 May 2025
Rage bait article worked, and giving it more traffic by sharing. Bump up that click through rate for ad revenue
— Reddit.com, 20 Mar. 2025
Where does rage-bait come from?
Rage-bait appears to have sprung up in the 2010s, formed in similar fashion to the earlier clickbait. It combines rage (“violent and uncontrolled anger”) with bait (“to try to make angry with criticism or insults”).
They are also returning to prominence in the media with Josephine convincing her father to give her a newspaper column, though she needs some advice from her callous parent on the nuances of writing rage-bait.
— Daniel Herborn, The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 27 Feb. 2016
I say it seems because maybe I'm falling for the rage bait in the papers which delight in stories of people suing their mother because they got a cold from a bed that wasn't aired properly or suing a baby who wouldn't smile for them.
— Irish Examiner (Cork, Ireland), 3 Apr. 2017
How is rage-bait used?
Rage-bait is slang, but not vulgar, and is found in a variety of types of writing.

***
red-pilled
adjective | RED-pild
A leftist insult for delusional far-right beliefs; someone who has come to see the truth about the world
What does red-pilled mean?
Red-pilled is a slang term meaning “having taken the red pill,” with red pill referring to something that causes someone to recognize a reality previously concealed from them. It is widely used as a disparagement of people associated with far-right or reactionary ideologies.
Also red pilled, redpilled.
Examples of red-pilled
I am not / don’t consider myself “progressive” but I sure as hell ain’t a MAGA red pilled incel who is angry at the world
—@kaponofor3.bsky.social;, Bluesky, 20 Nov. 2024
“I haven’t been boosted or anything, but the moment where I really started to get redpilled on the whole vax thing was, the sickest that I’ve been in the last 15 years, by far, was when I took the vaccine,” said Vance, describing how his thinking on the vaccines have changed.
—Henry J. Gomez, quoting JD Vance, NBC News, 31 Oct. 2024
It is hard to appreciate just how thoroughly one of the world’s richest men has been red-pilled until you actually follow along with his media diet.
—Tim Murphy, Mother Jones, 3 May 2024
Black gay liberal turned ‘red-pilled’ conservative speaks out against woke ideologies
—Fox News Digital (headline), Fox News, 20 Jun. 2024
I'm what many on the left would now call a red-pilled right-wing conspiracy theorist (i.e. I don't mindlessly accept everything the mainstream media preaches about Covid and find myself increasingly disenchanted with the Dem party)...
—Pemulis_DMZ (user), The Free Press (comment), 17 May 2022
To be red-pilled can now mean being broadly skeptical of experts, to be distrustful of the mainstream press or to see hypocrisy in social liberalism.
—Nellie Bowles, New York Times, 19 May 2020
Where does red-pilled come from?
Red-pilled is based on the Internet slang red pill, or something that causes someone to be made aware of a purported deeper truth or to recognize the ‘real’ facts of a situation. Red pill came from a scene in the 1999 film The Matrix where the main character is given the choice between taking a (literal) blue pill that would return him to a state of ignorance and a red pill that would show him the truth that humans are enslaved in a simulated reality.
The concept—and term—spread as a metaphor for supposed political and social enlightenment in the 2010s within online communities associated with conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies (including racism, homophobia, and misogyny). The counterpart, blue pill, also became popular at this time; it refers to unquestioning acceptance of progressive thoughts and values. By the 2020s critics of right-leaning individuals and groups began co-opting red-pilled as a form of sarcastic derision, meant to call out their truths as delusional and bigoted.
Now, permit us to get a little ‘grammar-pilled.’ The noun red pill was made into a verb, “to make or be made aware of truth,” taking the past tense and past participle forms of red-pilled. From red-pilled (and parallel developments yielding blue-pilled) came the suffix -pilled, which is usually humorously attached to stems characterizing a sudden fixation or indoctrination. For instance: “After deleting social media from my phone, I got book-pilled and can’t stop reading.”
How is red-pilled used?
As a modifier, red-pilled is widely used to denigrate someone or something seen as conspiratorially or conservatively extreme, especially in aggressive opposition to social liberalism. It frequently appears in the construction to get or become red-pilled, which refers to the process in which an ‘unenlightened’ individual comes into their newfound understanding, typically through forms of ideological or political exposure and persuasion.
While the use is less common since being appropriated by, especially, left-wing critics, red-pilled is still sometimes used in its original, unironic sense of “having seen the truth,” typically involving a significant turnabout in one’s political or social stances.
***
reheat nachos
verb
to produce a lesser version of or poor tribute to an earlier song, album, etc.
What does reheat nachos mean?
Reheating nachos is internet-speak for producing creative work—such as a song, album, acting performance, lewk, etc.—that is similar to, but (usually) not as good as, one that came before. In other words, to reheat nachos is to build on someone else’s work (or one’s own) without adding anything new or fresh.
Examples of reheat nachos
“Reheating nachos” is so funny because some nachos are somebody else’s reheated nachos. Pharrell reheated Off The Wall & prince’s nachos for this sound. Lmao.
—@SoualiganAmazon, X (formerly Twitter), 22 Feb. 2025
I find it interesting that Gaga’s New Album/Singles have a somewhat similar performance as Dua Lipa’s Last Album/Singles. But the Dua Lipa Album is online considered a flop … while Gaga’s Album is a hit and she is reheating Nachos.
—@darksonic, Blue Sky, 15 Mar. 2025
Chappell Roan reheating Halsey’s nachos who reheated nachos from the '90s ;;
—@mikeyisbae731, Reddit, 18 Feb. 2025
Where does reheat nachos come from?
Some commenters have suggested that reheat nachos originated on Twitter when someone suggested that the singer Shakira was reheating Beyonc;’s nachos (specifically, the album Renaissance) with her new music, but the general consensus is that the whole idea of such metaphorical nachos came from a viral clip of the reality show Baddies West in which Natalie Nunn and Stunna Girl are talking and Stunna Girl is eating nachos. The account sharing the clip captioned it “you can tell natalie lowkey wanted stunna girls nachos.” The verbal phrase caught fire in early 2025 in corners of social media devoted to pop culture fandom.
If you’ve spent any time on the internet you’ve probably heard the term “reheating nachos.” Thrust from the linguistic ingenuity of Stan Twitter, this term is mainly aimed at pop stars who revisit older elements of their career and revive them in an attempt to replicate previous success.
—Kofi Mframa, USA Today, 11 Mar. 2025
How is reheat nachos used?
Reheat nachos seems straightforward as an idiom used to mildly criticize someone for unoriginality. However, it is quite new, and people are asking questions.
is reheating nachos inherently bad? someone get me a young person
—@stachional, Blue Sky, 23 Feb. 2025
To answer stachional’s question: at least at the moment, almost always. Just as literally reheating literal nachos tends to produce less-than-desirable results (that often make their way into the metaphor) …
She’s the blueprint of reheating nachos She [Madonna] tried reheating Ray of Light in 2012 by working with Orbit again but that failed HARD. The cheese was all crusty and gross.
—@silly_nate, Reddit, 16 Feb. 2025
… revisiting one’s own past artistic output/fashion triumphs/etc., or someone else’s, is usually viewed disapprovingly.
It’s a bit early in [her] carreer to be reheating nachos….
—@Standard-Yogurt-4515, Reddit, 18 Feb. 2025
However, as many people commenting on the term point out, not only are people’s views on art subjective, but it’s next-to-impossible to create something new that doesn’t draw on what has come before.
For the record I like the song but she is reheating some nachos here and there and that’s okay we all reheat nachos sometimes
—@midosommar, X (formerly Twitter), 27 Jan. 2025
Furthermore, the phrase has seen playful pushback from those accused of reheating their own nachos.
My nachos are mine. I invented them, and I’m proud of them.
—Lady Gaga, speaking with Entertainment Weekly, 7 Mar. 2025

sanewashing
noun | SAYN-waw-shing
Making something considered ‘insane’ seem more ‘sane’
What does sanewashing mean?
Sanewashing refers to the practice of making irrational, extreme, or otherwise problematic people or ideas appear more reasonable or normal than they really are. It is especially used as a liberal criticism of coverage of conservative politics in mainstream media.
Also, sane-washing. Related forms include sanewash, sanewasher.
Examples of sanewashing
Sanewashing has become SO habitual for so much of established media. … Whether it's deliberate, or just [normalcy] bias, I can't always tell. … The world is literally on fire right now, in so many ways, and they're platforming arsonists.
—@jennasaisquoi.bsky.social;, Bluesky, 5 Dec. 2024
If you’re terminally online, you already know what “sane-washing” is: It’s the way reporters covering Trump sometimes take a rally speech filled with incoherent asides and falsehoods and deliver bite-sized news nuggets that don’t convey how wild the event was.
—Olivier Knox, U.S. News & World Report, 10 Oct. 2024
Users first sanewashed its ideas [Reddit forum dedicated to the anti-work movement] to suit their preferences, then gentrified the space to rid it of the rough edges left by its founding crew.
—Trace Underwood, Medium (blog), 6 Feb. 2022
Where does sanewashing come from?
Sanewashing combines sane, “rational,” and -washing, a combining form based on whitewashing (“glossing over, covering up, minimizing, misrepresenting, etc., faults or wrongdoings”). Greenwashing (“the practice of making a product or activity appear to be more environmentally friendly than it really is”) is an earlier example of this compounding.
Evidence for sanewashing appears online first in the late 2000s and early 2010s in discussions of speculative technology, then in the early 2020s in critiques of social liberalism. The term spread in fall 2024, with the reelection of President Donald Trump, as an objection to supposed ‘soft’ coverage of him in media and journalism.
How is sanewashing used?
Currently, sanewashing is mainly used to criticize mainstream media and journalism perceived as normalizing or sanitizing Donald Trump—and dangerous, unreasonable, or objectionable advisers or agendas associated with him—through euphemistic language, false balance, or other practices. In this way, use of sanewashing is connected to people associated with left-wing or anti-Trump politics.
Its related verb form is sanewash, as in “I canceled my subscription to the newspaper; I couldn’t take how much it sanewashed the administration’s new policies.” A person or organization accused of sanewashing is occasionally called a sanewasher.

sanewashing
noun | SAYN-waw-shing
Making something considered ‘insane’ seem more ‘sane’
What does sanewashing mean?
Sanewashing refers to the practice of making irrational, extreme, or otherwise problematic people or ideas appear more reasonable or normal than they really are. It is especially used as a liberal criticism of coverage of conservative politics in mainstream media.
Also, sane-washing. Related forms include sanewash, sanewasher.
Examples of sanewashing
Sanewashing has become SO habitual for so much of established media. … Whether it's deliberate, or just [normalcy] bias, I can't always tell. … The world is literally on fire right now, in so many ways, and they're platforming arsonists.
—@jennasaisquoi.bsky.social;, Bluesky, 5 Dec. 2024
If you’re terminally online, you already know what “sane-washing” is: It’s the way reporters covering Trump sometimes take a rally speech filled with incoherent asides and falsehoods and deliver bite-sized news nuggets that don’t convey how wild the event was.
—Olivier Knox, U.S. News & World Report, 10 Oct. 2024
Users first sanewashed its ideas [Reddit forum dedicated to the anti-work movement] to suit their preferences, then gentrified the space to rid it of the rough edges left by its founding crew.
—Trace Underwood, Medium (blog), 6 Feb. 2022
Where does sanewashing come from?
Sanewashing combines sane, “rational,” and -washing, a combining form based on whitewashing (“glossing over, covering up, minimizing, misrepresenting, etc., faults or wrongdoings”). Greenwashing (“the practice of making a product or activity appear to be more environmentally friendly than it really is”) is an earlier example of this compounding.
Evidence for sanewashing appears online first in the late 2000s and early 2010s in discussions of speculative technology, then in the early 2020s in critiques of social liberalism. The term spread in fall 2024, with the reelection of President Donald Trump, as an objection to supposed ‘soft’ coverage of him in media and journalism.
How is sanewashing used?
Currently, sanewashing is mainly used to criticize mainstream media and journalism perceived as normalizing or sanitizing Donald Trump—and dangerous, unreasonable, or objectionable advisers or agendas associated with him—through euphemistic language, false balance, or other practices. In this way, use of sanewashing is connected to people associated with left-wing or anti-Trump politics.
Its related verb form is sanewash, as in “I canceled my subscription to the newspaper; I couldn’t take how much it sanewashed the administration’s new policies.” A person or organization accused of sanewashing is occasionally called a sanewasher.

sanewashing
noun | SAYN-waw-shing
Making something considered ‘insane’ seem more ‘sane’
What does sanewashing mean?
Sanewashing refers to the practice of making irrational, extreme, or otherwise problematic people or ideas appear more reasonable or normal than they really are. It is especially used as a liberal criticism of coverage of conservative politics in mainstream media.
Also, sane-washing. Related forms include sanewash, sanewasher.
Examples of sanewashing
Sanewashing has become SO habitual for so much of established media. … Whether it's deliberate, or just [normalcy] bias, I can't always tell. … The world is literally on fire right now, in so many ways, and they're platforming arsonists.
—@jennasaisquoi.bsky.social;, Bluesky, 5 Dec. 2024
If you’re terminally online, you already know what “sane-washing” is: It’s the way reporters covering Trump sometimes take a rally speech filled with incoherent asides and falsehoods and deliver bite-sized news nuggets that don’t convey how wild the event was.
—Olivier Knox, U.S. News & World Report, 10 Oct. 2024
Users first sanewashed its ideas [Reddit forum dedicated to the anti-work movement] to suit their preferences, then gentrified the space to rid it of the rough edges left by its founding crew.
—Trace Underwood, Medium (blog), 6 Feb. 2022
Where does sanewashing come from?
Sanewashing combines sane, “rational,” and -washing, a combining form based on whitewashing (“glossing over, covering up, minimizing, misrepresenting, etc., faults or wrongdoings”). Greenwashing (“the practice of making a product or activity appear to be more environmentally friendly than it really is”) is an earlier example of this compounding.
Evidence for sanewashing appears online first in the late 2000s and early 2010s in discussions of speculative technology, then in the early 2020s in critiques of social liberalism. The term spread in fall 2024, with the reelection of President Donald Trump, as an objection to supposed ‘soft’ coverage of him in media and journalism.
How is sanewashing used?
Currently, sanewashing is mainly used to criticize mainstream media and journalism perceived as normalizing or sanitizing Donald Trump—and dangerous, unreasonable, or objectionable advisers or agendas associated with him—through euphemistic language, false balance, or other practices. In this way, use of sanewashing is connected to people associated with left-wing or anti-Trump politics.
Its related verb form is sanewash, as in “I canceled my subscription to the newspaper; I couldn’t take how much it sanewashed the administration’s new policies.” A person or organization accused of sanewashing is occasionally called a sanewasher.


SMH
abbreviation
'Shaking my head'; an expression of disapproval or disbelief
What does SMH mean?
SMH (also written as smh) stands for "shaking my head." The variant SMDH means "shaking my damn head." SMH is also sometimes glossed as "scratching my head."
Examples of SMH
The This Is Us star shared a photo to her Instagram Stories which showed a brown box with familiar Amazon labelling sitting on the steps outside a destroyed property. "Do better, Amazon. Can we not have better discretion than to leave a package at a residence that no longer exists? This is my mother and father in law's home. Smh," Moore, 40, wrote.
— Chatham Daily News (Chatham, Ont.), Feb. 15 2025
Many social-media users are retweeting and resharing some of the tweets on their own, causing them to go viral - like the one in which Kelce wrote, "I hate it when the #Chipotle line is damn near to the door ... Smh.”
— The Winnipeg Sun, 26 Nov. 2023
Where does SMH come from?
SMH is an abbreviation formed from the first letters of the phrase it stands for. Like LOL ("laugh out loud," "laughing out loud"), smh offers the reader a gesture—a shaking head—as opposed to a simple phrase or statement, the way that abbreviations like brb ("be right back") and FWIW ("for what it's worth") do. The abbreviation has been in use since at least the early 1990s.
SLG: silly little grin
SMH: shaking my head
SOSO: same old, same old
— news.newusers.questions, 15 Jul. 1994
How is SMH used?
SMH often is used to impart a sense of bemused incredulity, or of frustration or disapproval.
unalive
verb
a euphemism for ‘kill’ or ‘die’
What does unalive mean?
Unalive is a euphemistic way to say “kill” or “die.”
Examples of unalive
I remember the day I forgot to buy bread. Grandma almost unalived me.
—@miss_lilieee, X (formerly Twitter), 12 Apr. 2025
The internet is going wild. Did someone important unalive?
—@myalteredsoul, Blue Sky, 7 Dec. 2024
The owner told Newsweek via TikTok that the dogs didn't “unalive the skunk,” which she originally thought. Turns out the skunk was playing dead, and to protect itself from the dogs, it sprayed them.
—Liz O’Connell, Newsweek, 13 Sept. 2024
Where does unalive come from?
Use of unalive to mean “kill” or “die” arose on video-focused social media platforms (such as TikTok) by content creators and commenters to avoid having their videos or comments flagged/removed for violent or inappropriate content.
I’ve noticed a lot of YouTubers using “unalived” instead of “killed” or “suicide,” for fear of being demonetized or suspended.
—@FrankyKnuckles, _Reddit, 2 Aug. 2024
How is unalive used?
Unalive is an example of euphemism, the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant. It often used to enable discussion of sensitive or serious topics (such as suicide) on social media without risking content removal or punitive consequences from social media moderators or algorithms. Unalive is used as a verb, with all of the regular tenses and participles: unalived, unaliving, unalives. Unalived is also used as an adjective meaning dead.