This term has surpassed ‘demure’ and ‘romantasy’ to be Oxford Word of the Year

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Continuing its annual tradition, Oxford has announced its ‘Word of the Year 2024’!

Surpassing major trends of 2024 like ‘demure’ and ‘romantasy’, ‘brain rot’ has been declared the word of the year. According to the official statement by Oxford University Press, the term is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging”. It may also refer to “something characterised as likely to lead to such deterioration”.

Use of the word

The first recorded use of the word was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. In this, Thoreau criticised society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in favour of simple ones. He wrote, “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

In modern context, the term has gained significance particularly in the context of overconsumption of low-quality, meaningless content on social media, highlighting the negative impact of such consumption.

Process behind choosing the word

Oxford language experts created a shortlist of six words to reflect the moods and conversations that have helped shape the past year. After two weeks of public voting and widespread conversation, they combined the public’s input, voting results and language data to declare the word of the year.

Other shortlisted words were demure, lore, dynamic pricing, romantasy and slop.

The experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year and the term increased in usage frequency by 230 per cent between 2023 and 2024.

Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, said, “Looking back at the Oxford Word of the Year over the past two decades, 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.”

“I find it fascinating that the term ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha, those communities largely responsible for the use and creation of the digital content the term refers to. These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot’. It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of social media that they’ve inherited,” he added.

Also Read: Australia bans social media use for children below 16 years: Can this be an effective solution?

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