Brain Rot named Oxford's word of the year

[Gefn]

London
CNN
 —
There’s a name for that feeling you get after spending too long scrolling aimlessly, and Oxford University Press (OUP) has chosen it as its word for the year for 2024.

“Brain rot” took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as public commentary and analysis of OUP’s language data.

In a statement released Monday, OUP, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, defined “brain rot” 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.”

While the use of “brain rot” rose 230% this year, it actually first appeared more than a century ago.

According to OUP, it was first used by author Henry David Thoreau in his book “Walden” as he criticised society’s tendency to devalue complicated ideas in favour of simple ones.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/world/brain-rot-oxford-word-of-the-year-2024-intl-scli-gbr/index.html

[Gefn]

Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore | Siân Boyle

If you want to witness the last vestiges of human intellect swirling down the drain, hold your nose and type the words “skibidi toilet” into YouTube. The 11-second video features an animated human head protruding from a toilet bowl while singing the nonsensical lyrics “skibidi dop dop dop yes yes”. The clip has been viewed more than 215m times, and spawned hundreds of millions of references on TikTok and other social media.

Fitting, then, that the Oxford word of the year has just been announced as “brain rot”. As an abstract concept, brain rot is something we’re all vaguely aware of. The dictionary defines it 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”. But few people are aware of how literally technology is rotting our brains, and how decisively compulsive internet use is destroying our grey matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/09/brain-rot-word-of-the-year-reality-internet-cognitive-function

[mountaineer]

I assume the accompanying photo looks something like this:

[Wingnut]

I assume the accompanying photo looks something like this:

That one is filed under: "Shit for brains"

[DefiantMassRINO]

The definition sounds more like 'brain atrophy' than 'brain rot'.

'brain rot' would require an action (like eating sugar) or neglect (like not brushing teeth).  Global Climate change is brain rot.  Consumption of Global Climate Change nonsense dimishes critical thinking.  Without critical thinking, the brain morphs into a pretentious, duplicitous, hypocritical douchebag.

John Kerry and Al Gore are prime examples of those suffering brain rot and spreading brain rot as well.

Germany is an example of mass brain rot for making their economy overly dependent upon wind.  In their Global Climate Change brain rot and windphoria, they failed to apply critical thinking to mitigate risk of a calm winds.