Chethma De Mel, Jadetimes Staff
C. J. De Mel is a Jadetimes news reporter covering Entertainment News
Are you mindlessly scrolling through Instagram reels or TikTok videos? You may be suffering from what Oxford University Press has called its 2024 Word of the Year: "brain rot."
The phrase is indicative of increasing concerns about the impact of consuming a lot of low-quality online content, especially on social media. According to Oxford's research, usage of the term increased by 230% between 2023 and 2024.
The word's popularity, according to Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist and professor at Oxford University, is a "symptom of the times."
What is Brain Rot?
"Brain rot" describes the state where one's brain or intellectual activity deteriorates, commonly attributed to excessive consumption of trivial and unchallenging material. The term has only recently gained wide usage in the internet age, but its first usage dates to 1854. Henry David Thoreau chided society for its lack of intellectual seriousness in Walden, comparing the decay to a blight that is more universal and injurious than that of the potato.
It started in Gen Z and Gen Alpha communities to define low-value social media content and has since found its place in mainstream vocabulary. In spite of the term's popularity, there is absolutely no scientific basis for this "brain rot," according to Professor Przybylski. He regards it instead as a way of describing anxious feelings about the digital world.
Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl says the term reveals how people's relationship with virtual life has changed. He adds that the selection - like last year's winner, "rizz" - shows how language is now being influenced by online communities.
The 2024 Shortlist
Other words that made it onto Oxford's Shortlist for Word of the Year were:
Demure: To describe someone or something as modest or restrained.
Dynamic pricing: Prices changed depending on demand or market conditions.
Lore: The collection of facts and stories that are needed to understand something better.
Romantasy: A genre of fiction combining romance and fantasy, especially with supernatural or adventurous elements.
Slop: Artificial Intelligence-generated low-quality content that is widely disseminated on the internet.
A Broader Look at Words of the Year
Oxford is not the only authority to underline words that define cultural trends. Recently, the Cambridge Dictionary chose "manifest," which has been increasingly used as part of a wellness trend of visualizing success to make it more attainable.
Meanwhile, Collins English Dictionary named "brat" its Word of the Year, inspired by Charli XCX's viral album and the cultural movement that followed, embracing confident, independent, hedonistic attitudes.
Dictionary.com's Word of the Year, "demure," went viral after TikTok creator Jools Lebron pointed out her under-the-radar outfit and makeup to create the now-viral "very demure, very mindful" trend.
These choices reveal how digital culture remains a shaper of our language, but more so our view of the world around us.
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