All the words of the year: from demure to brat via brain rot, the “brain that rots” also due to social media

The words of the year chosen by British dictionaries in 2024 pass through social media and virality and it is not always a positive passage. Brain rot is the word chosen from the Oxford University dictionary as a neologism that represents this year and which had a peak in use in 2024. This is the official definition: “The alleged deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, seen primarily as the result of excessive consumption of material (now particularly online content) considered trivial or undemanding.”

The Oxford Dictionary has chosen brain rot as its 2024 word of the year, a term that captures the essence of the digital age. The phrase, which literally means rotting of the brain, According to the prestigious dictionary, brain rot has emerged as a symbol of how we use our free time, especially in the age of social media.

If you think about it, it’s scrolling, it’s scrolling through social media without rhyme or reason, passing through videos of a few seconds, usually of little weight. It’s about doing nothing for hours on TikTok that leaves nothing and doesn’t seem to be good for the brain. It is the mental or intellectual deterioration perceived due to excessive consumption of banal content online, it is that transition between real and virtual. However, the word did not originate with social media, but was recorded in 1854.

“Despite not being a new or recent concept, brain rot has been used widely on social media this year, especially on TikTok,” explained the Oxford University Press committee that judged the six competing words. The frequency of appearance increased by 250% per million words between 2023 and 2024.

Among the beaten words there are slop, low quality works created by an artificial intelligence, lore, the knowledge necessary to understand everything, but also the dynamic price and demure word trending in the summer and chosen instead by the online dictionary Dictionary.com . What made his fortune was above all the phrase “very demure, very mindful”, used in many videos by Jools Lebron, beauty influencer and TikToker. This word tells of shyness, modesty, confidentiality, quiet security. The opposite of brat-brat-in-your-face cheekiness, Collins Dictionary’s choice word for the year. The reference is to Charli XCX’s album, released on 7 June 2024. The Cambridge Dictionary has chosen Manifest and the Australian Macquarie Dictionary Enshittification, in which the term shit must be extrapolated.

In Italy, new words in dictionaries have been known for months. The Zingarelli of Zanichelli he inserts catfishing, gieffino, hype, maranza, bubble tea, overtourism, but also neurodivergence because there is “greater attention to a more inclusive terminology”. On the Devotee Oli from Le Monnier there are advocacy, gender studies, ChatGPT, cyberstalking, downburst, Mangiaficio, Forchiaio, Dashi, Gastronauta, Being in the Bubble in addition to the ones already mentioned maranza, bubble tea and overtourism. In the new edition of the dictionary there are over 400 neologisms and neosemies.