Wrap rage

Wrap rage, also called package rage, is the common name for heightened levels of anger and frustration resulting from the inability to open hard-to-open packaging, particularly some heat-sealed plastic blister packs and clamshells. People suffer thousands of injuries per year, such as cut fingers and sprained wrists, from tools used to open packages and from packaging itself, and in some cases damage the items they are trying to free from packaging. Easy-opening systems are available to improve package opening convenience.

Packaging sometimes must be made difficult to open. For example, regulations dictate that some over-the-counter drugs have tamper resistance to deter unauthorized opening prior to the intended customer and be in child-resistant packaging. Other packages are intentionally made difficult to open to reduce package pilferage and shoplifting.

Hard plastic blister packs also protect the products while they are being shipped. In addition, using transparent plastic allows customers to view products directly before purchasing them.

The term wrap rage itself came about as a result of media attention to the phenomenon. Although other variants such as packaging rage have been used as early as 1998, Word Spy identifies the earliest use of wrap rage as coming from The Daily Telegraph in 2003. The American Dialect Society identified the term as one of the most useful of 2007.

In 2006, Consumer Reports magazine recognized the wrap rage phenomenon when it created the Oyster Awards for the products with the hardest-to-open packaging. A story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about wrap rage was featured on The Colbert Report when host Stephen Colbert tried to use a knife to remove a new calculator from its plastic packaging, to no avail.

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