Opinion ‘Brain rot’ is how Gen Z deals with the chaotic world it inherited

The Oxford University Press seems to agree with Finneas. Its selection for Word of the Year is also a nod to a generation that has inherited absurdity and chaos. Picked after wide public discussion, the 2024 word is “brain rot” — as in what happens to the brain in the absence of any inconvenience, in the age of absolute access. (Think: Blinkit, Swiggy, 5G internet, touch-screen phones that double up as movie screens) Brain rot, as in what your brain does when its job increasingly seems to be to just sit back and watch the computers take over. (Think: AI overviews, chatbots that can simplify complex texts, “smart” watches, TVs, fridges, homes). Brain rot, as in something that can help the brain revel in its rotting (Think: Reality TV, doom-scrolling, meta humour).

“Brain rot” is another in a long, disjointed list of words/phrases/memes that spell out a pattern, if one pieces them together. The Chill Guy/Girl, the “this is fine” meme (while sitting inside a house on fire) and bed rot, all communicate surreal disengagement. The general sentiment seems to be: “Yeah, we know it’s all gone for a toss. What about it?” Gen Z’s solution to the current moment of churn is not to look away. It is instead, to look, engage and yet remind each other: Don’t take yourself so seriously. Tied together with humour and heavy, sometimes concerning, levels of irony, brain rot is how this generation reckons with its absurd inheritance.

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, says about this year’s selection: “It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of social media that they’ve inherited.” It is, in essence, like most Gen Z humour, an “in joke”. The punchline is: “We’re all gonna die”.

Brain rot makes up part of another digital puzzle — this year, like previous ones, saw many dictionaries and platforms pick words that are attempting to capture the swell of technological changes we are living through. The runners-up for Oxford were “lore”, “demure”, “romantasy” which are all either born out of the internet age or have regained prominence and new meaning thanks to it. The anxiety of not wanting to be caught off-guard, like when Facebook and its ilk took off in the bad old Noughties, is palpable. Everybody, from governments to journalists to citizens, seems to want to take this culture apart and understand exactly what’s going on as it is going on — and what it all means. Hence, the many words of the year, all announcing the arrival of a moment we’ve been in the middle of for a quarter of a century.

The absurdists have it, folks. We are all hurtling towards an unknowable, probably unpleasant, oblivion. Choking on the air we are trying to breathe, alarm bell after alarm bell about the dangers of the (mis/dis)information age, and the cruelties we witness while it all goes on — there is a sour taste in the mouth, and not much hope to work with. But while the world blindly panics, one generation’s strategy seems to be, “this is fine”. As long as we are laughing — and engaging — “this is going to be fine”. There may be a lesson in that.

sukhmani.malik@expressindia.com