Oxford University has named “Brain Rot” as its Word of the Year.

Do you scroll Instagram reels or TikTok endlessly for hours? 

In that case, probably, you are suffering from “brain rot,” which was defined as Word of the Year by Oxford University Press.

The term “brain rot” refers to concerns about quality decline from excessive consumption of low-quality content, especially on social media. The use has increased 230% during 2023 to 2024.

According to Psychologist and Oxford University Professor Andrew Przybylski, the popularity of the word represents “the era we are living in.” It surpassed five other words or phrases on the shortlist, including “demure,” “Romantasy,” and “dynamic pricing.”

What do you mean by brain rot?

Brain-rotting is the term for certain units which are said to have deteriorated with respect to mental or intellectual state and which are generally assigned to items lacking substance or any intellectual challenge.

“Brain rot” is a much older term, used even before the Internet, but it’s interesting to note that it was originally coined by Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden in 1854. Thoreau said society belittles complex notions that could potentially cause a more comprehensive mental decline; “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?”

Originally popularized by Gen Z and Gen Alpha on social media, the phrase has become more popularized since becoming the gold standard descriptor for what really bad content looks like on the internet.

Prof. Przybylski noted that there is no evidence that brain rot is a real phenomenon but rather reflects people’s dissatisfaction with the online world. It is a handy umbrella term for our worries about social media.

President of Oxford Languages Casper Grathwohl reveals that looking at the Word of the year over the past 20 years only shows how society has come to fixate more on virtual lives as opposed to actual lives and how internet culture affects behaviors.

“Brain rot” touches on the perceived threats of that world and how it starts to structure what we spend time with.

Oxford isn’t the only dictionary to declare its Word of the Year. In fact, Cambridge Dictionary last month announced “manifest” as theirs because of the emerging meaning of “imagining accomplishing something will make it more likely to happen” under the world’s wellness trend.

Dictionary Collins English has nominated “brat” as the Word of the Year. The definition as someone selling themselves with a “confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude” was inspired by Charli XCX’s viral album. This has since birthed a cultural movement.

Maybe too much of a coincidence, Dictionary.com selected “demure” for its Word of the Year-influenced by a viral TikTok theme revolving around a “very demure, very mindful” feminism.