Brain rot

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For the 2025 meme, see Italian brainrot.

In Internet culture, the term brain rot (also brainrot or brain-rot) describes digital media deemed to be of low quality or value.[1] The term also more broadly refers to the harmful effects associated with excessive or disordered use of digital media, especially short-form entertainment[2] and doomscrolling.[3] Popularized by Generation Z and Generation Alpha social media users, the term has since entered mainstream usage.[4]

Origin and usage

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According to Oxford University Press, the first recorded use of the term brain rot traces back to the 1854 book Walden by Henry David Thoreau.[5][6] In that book, Thoreau reflected on materialism and argued that a tendency to prefer trivial ideas could weaken the mind, a harbinger for how the term would come to be used to describe the effects of disordered use of digital content.[7] Thoreau was criticizing what he saw as a decline in intellectual standards, comparing it to the 1840s "potato rot" in Europe.[4]

In 2007, brain rot was used by Twitter users to describe dating game shows, video games, and "hanging out online".[8] Usage of the phrase increased online in the 2010s before spiking in popularity in 2020 on Discord, when it became an Internet meme.[8] From 2023 to 2024, Oxford reported the term's usage increased by 230% in frequency per million words.[4][5]

As of 2024, it was used in the context of Generation Alpha's digital habits, with critics noting that the generation is "excessively immersed in online culture",[9] underscoring the fact that by 2024, an estimated 79 percent of the world's population of 15-24 year olds used the internet.[10] The term brain rot has been associated with the tendency for young people to pepper their speech with Internet references[1] such as skibidi (referencing Skibidi Toilet), rizz (charm), gyatt (buttocks), fanum tax (taking food from another's meal), and sigma (solitary, masculine men).[11][5][12]

Analysis

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In an article for Literary Hub, Josh Abbey argued that the concept of "brain rot" had existed long before the phrase was coined, likening it to William Wordsworth's criticism of "frantic novels" in 1800 and the criticisms of film and television by Virginia Woolf and Aldous Huxley in the 20th century.[13] Günseli Yalcinkaya compared "brain rot" to 20th century artistic and political movements such as Dada for being "intentionally absurd, context-less and fast-paced", and noted how it can be used to push political messages.[14]

Serenko (2025) attributed popularization of "brainrot" content to supply and demand factors. On the supply side, "brain rot" is associated both with the business models of the major social media platforms that rely on maintaining user attention, and the desire on the part of creators to monetize low-quality material for profit, increasingly with reliance on Generative AI (see AI slop). On the demand side, consumption of such material is linked to users' psychological preference for low-effort, repetitive, rewarding activities. Typical features of "brain rot" content are associated with emotional intensity, brevity, familiar characters, references to cultural or societal themes, and ease of understanding.[15]

Influence

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The term brain rot was named Oxford Word of the Year in 2024, beating other words like demure and romantasy.[4][5] Its modern usage is defined by the Oxford University Press 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".[4] Offering an explanation for the term, The Guardian journalist Siân Boyle provided commentary on the "brain rot" scholarship that purportedly identified links between excessive screen use and reduced memory capacity and reduced attention.[16] In the Spanish language periodical El Pais, Urguayan journalist Facundo Macchi then similarly reviewed scholarship on the effects of excessive amounts of low-quality online materials, utilizing the disputed phrase "social media addiction" (rather than the scientifically accurate phrase problematic social media use) to argue that the scholarship supported a link between so-called "junk content" and both shortened attention spans and weakened memory.[17]

In the same year, millennial Australian senator Fatima Payman made headlines by making a short speech to the Australian parliament using Generation Alpha slang. She introduced the speech as addressing "an oft-forgotten section of our society", referring to Generations Z and Alpha, and said that she would "render the remainder of my statement using language they're familiar with".[18] Using slang terms, Payman criticised the government's plans to ban under-14s from social media and closed by saying that, "Though some of you cannot yet vote, I hope that, when you do, it will be in a more goated Australia for a government with more aura. Skibidi!"[19] The speech, written by a 21-year-old staff member, was labeled by some as an example of "brain rot" outside the online world.[19]

In the 2025 Jubilee of the World of Communications, brain rot was also used by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, as he urged people to reduce their use of social media and avoid "putrefazione cerebrale".[20][21]

Taking a different approach, one researcher who interviewed Norwegian 16- and 17-year-olds about the term has argued that 'brain rot' is best understood as a way that young people participate in social media, utilizing deliberately non-productive messaging as a means of resisting the pressures of productivity and self-optimization.[22]

Mental health responses

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Educational psychologists began utilizing the phrase 'brain rot' in reviews of research into the relationships between cognitive decline, mental exhaustion, and excessive exposure to low-quality social media materials, arguing that research has demonstrated that brain rot leads to "emotional desensitization, cognitive overload, and a negative self-concept."[23] By 2024, mental health organizations had begun to use the term, offering suggestions for prevention and treatment. The Newport Institute, an organization dedicated to providing resources for young adults, suggested the following prevention techniques: "try limiting screen time, deleting distracting apps from your phone, and turning off unnecessary notifications."[24] Others have suggested resilience training, AI literacy, and regular mental health assessments.[25] Those in higher education have also sought to promote responses to brain rot. Prof. Dr. Sri Lestari from Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta observed that although brain rot has not been classified as an official psychological disorder, she recommended instilling self-control at a young age and reducing screen time.[26]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Roy, Jessica (13 June 2024). "If You Know What 'Brainrot' Means, You Might Already Have It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 10 October 2024. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  2. ^ "Why teenagers are deliberately seeking brain rot on TikTok | Psyche Ideas". Psyche. Archived from the original on 11 January 2025. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  3. ^ Scanlan, Rebekah (29 December 2024). "'On the rise': Late-night ritual ruining lives". news.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 January 2025. Retrieved 10 January 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e Rufo, Yasmin (2024). "Losing your mind looking at memes? The dictionary has a word for that". BBC. Archived from the original on 1 December 2024. Retrieved 2 December 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d Heaton, Benedict (2 December 2024). "'Brain rot' named Oxford Word of the Year 2024" (Press release). Oxford University Press.
  6. ^ Levitin, Mia (28 December 2024). "Social media, brain rot and the slow death of reading". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2 January 2025. Retrieved 15 February 2025.
  7. ^ Yazgan, Ayşe Müge (31 March 2025). "The problem of the century: Brain rot". OPUS Journal of Society Research. 22 (2): 211–221.
  8. ^ a b Prema, Shivé (8 February 2024). "What is 'brain rot'? Do you have it?". SBS News. Archived from the original on 28 March 2025. Retrieved 26 August 2024.
  9. ^ North, Anna (5 September 2024). "iPad kids speak up". Vox. Archived from the original on 27 November 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  10. ^ United Nations, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (27 November 2024). "Global Internet use continues to rise but disparities remain, especially in low-income regions". ITU Facts and Figures. Retrieved 16 November 2025.
  11. ^ "Parents and Gen Alpha kids are having unintelligible convos because of 'brainrot' language". NBC News. 10 August 2024. Archived from the original on 21 September 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  12. ^ Press-Reynolds, Kieran (25 June 2024). "How brainrot humour infected the internet with surreal gibberish". Dazed. Archived from the original on 26 June 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2024.
  13. ^ Abbey, Josh (20 December 2024). "New Media, Old Anxieties: Why is "Brain Rot" the Word of the Year?". Literary Hub. Archived from the original on 5 May 2025. Retrieved 24 August 2025.
  14. ^ Yalcinkaya, Günseli (11 June 2025). "Digital Dada or Futurist slop? An investigation into brainrot as art". Plaster Magazine. Archived from the original on 24 August 2025. Retrieved 24 August 2025.
  15. ^ Serenko, Alexander (2025). "Brain Rot – The 2024 Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year: Why Should Technology Leaders Care?" (PDF). IEEE Engineering Management Review: 1–9. doi:10.1109/EMR.2025.3583977.
  16. ^ Boyle, Siân (9 December 2024). "Is doom scrolling really rotting our brains? The evidence is getting harder to ignore". The Guardian.
  17. ^ Macchi, Facundo (26 December 2024). "The effects of 'brain rot': How junk content is damaging our minds". El Pais.
  18. ^ "'Skibidi': Payman opposes social age limit in speech to gen Z and gen Alpha". YouTube. 11 September 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  19. ^ a b Weedston, Lindsey (13 September 2024). "Fatima Payman Gen Z Slang Speech Declared 'Brainrot'". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 19 November 2024. Retrieved 16 September 2024.
  20. ^ Craig, Sean (27 January 2025). "Pope Francis Says Too Much Online Scrolling Causes 'Brain Rot'". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  21. ^ "Il Papa: La dipendenza dai social media provoca 'putrefazione cerebrale'". Agenzia ANSA (in Italian). 25 January 2025. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  22. ^ Owens, Emilie (26 June 2025). "'It speaks to me in brain rot': Theorising 'brain rot' as a genre of participation among teenagers". New Media & Society – via Open Access.
  23. ^ Yousef, Ahmed Mohamed Fahmy (7 March 2025). "Demystifying the New Dilemma of Brain Rot in the Digital Era: A Review". Brain Sciences. 15 (3): 283.
  24. ^ "Brain rot: The impact on young adult mental health". The Newport Institute. Retrieved 16 November 2025.
  25. ^ Roy, Ritendra and, Banerjee, Tamali (3 September 2025). "Impact of Digital Devices on Mental Health Leading to Brain Rot in Higher Education Students". SSRN Open Access – via Elsevier Science Direct.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ Gustati, Genis Dwi (8 July 2025). "Brain rot and the decline of critical thinking". Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. Retrieved 17 November 2025.