Oxford Just Revealed Its Word of the Year 2024—and You May Find It Relatable

If you've ever experienced a weird feeling after spending too much time scrolling on your phone, you can probably relate to the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024—'brain rot.'

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. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration", per Oxford University Press (OUP).

'Brain rot' gained popularity on social media this year as people (primarily those from Gen Z and Gen Alpha) began using the term to describe the feeling of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content. Between 2023 and 2024, the term increased in usage frequency by 230 percent, according to OUP.

"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," says Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages. "'Brain rot' speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time. It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology."

While the term was used a lot in 2024, the first recorded use of 'brain rot' was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau's Walden, according to OUP. The book details Thoreau's experience living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. In it, he criticizes how society devalues complex ideas in favor of simple ones. He writes: "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?”

To choose this year's word, OUP conducted a public vote in which more than 37,000 people participated. After two weeks of public voting, language experts considered the public’s input, voting results, and language data and declared 'brain rot' the Word of the Year for 2024.