‘Brain Rot’ – Oxford Word Of The Year 2024

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• Dec 6, 2024 | Kabita Pathak

Gen Z or Gen Alpha internet users and later went viral on social media to use for making fun of the low-quality, unimportant stuff on the internet…

Digital Desk: If you have been watching  endless Instagram reels or TikTok clips, you might be familiar with the term “brain rot,” which Oxford University Press has chosen to be its Word of the Year 2024. Such a phrase emerged due to the increasingly devastating effects of intaking immense amounts of bad-quality content from the internet and mainly social networks. It has been established that its coverage has increased by 230% between the years 2023 and 2024.
 

Professor and psychologist based at Oxford University, Andrew Przybylski noted that the frequency of using the word is a ‘pathognomonic’ of the era since society cannot concentrate without being distracted by digits appearing on screens.

Described as the supposed decline in the sanity or the intelligence of citizens as a result of their consumerist intake of mindless matter, brain rot is not new. The term was first used in 1854 by Henry David Thoreau in his work Walden, complaining about the way society reduces intricate concepts, as well as labor, to a mere low price.

A relatively new internet slang term that has originated from the Gen Z or Gen Alpha internet users and later went viral on social media to use for making fun of the low-quality, unimportant stuff on the internet.

Originally, Oxford had other choices on its list, those being ‘demure,’ ‘romantasy,’  ‘dynamic pricing,’ and ‘brain rot’ just replaced all of them.

At the same time, the Word of the Year in the Cambridge Dictionary looks to the future as it is “manifest.” Although recently it simply refers to something noticeable or easily observed, it has changed to mean the act of creating goals in mind and striving forwards to attain them due to the influence of manifestation.

Given that ‘brain rot’ is now a ‘thing,’ we are presented with a sobering reminder of the true price of agendas pushing digital consumption in an increasingly fast-paced society.