Each December, Oxford University Press (OUP)—the organization responsible for the Oxford English Dictionary—announces its word of the year, a word or expression that has attracted attention over the past 12 months and captures the mood or concerns of that particular year.
OUP’s 2024 word of the year is brain rot, defined as the “Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
This follows the trend of tech-related words of the year over the past couple of decades:
- 2023’s word of the year was rizz, a slang word meaning style, charm, or attractiveness, popularized on social media.
- 2022’s choice was goblin mode, a term referring to the rejection of societal expectations, which also went viral online.
- In 2015, the 😂 emoji was controversially selected as the WOTY, the first time a pictograph had been the winner.
- 2013’s word of the year was selfie, a reflection of people’s obsession with taking pictures of themselves at arm’s length and posting them on their socials.
- The 2005 US Oxford word of the year was podcast, a year after the phenomenon became a global hit.
Even though many English language dictionaries nominate their own words of the year, the Oxford English Dictionary is “widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language,” so linguists eagerly await its annual announcement.
OUP’s choice is selected by the Oxford Languages team, which assesses new and emerging words, established words whose definitions have changed, recommendations from dictionary editors and the public, and other sources of data. According to OUP, “Brain rot gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.”
Brain rot—which OUP says was first used in 1854 in David Thoreau’s book, Walden—originally referred to society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, indicating a widespread decline in intellectual effort. Today, it has adopted a modernized but similar meaning, mirroring concerns that people’s overconsumption of online content adversely affects their mental health. Despite this slight shift in meaning, Thereau’s question, “While England endeavors to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain rot–which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” seems as relevant today as it did back then.
Commenting on the recent prevalence of technological terms in OUP’s word of the year list, Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, said, “You can see society’s growing preoccupation with how our virtual lives are evolving, the way internet culture is permeating so much of who we are and what we talk about.” He continues, “Brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.”
This year’s winner pipped other social media-related words to the post. For example, slop, a word that describes the indiscriminate spread of low-quality AI-generated content, made the shortlist, as did romantasy, a genre of fiction that has become popular on TikTok.
Source: Oxford University Press
