2024’s Words of the Year reflect the anxieties, brokenness and the larger crisis of meaning that gave birth to Donald Trump’s return to power in America, as well as the surge of authoritarian populist outrage and uprising against pluralistic democracy around the world.
Oxford University Press (OUP) selected “brain rot” as its 2024 Word of the Year. OUP defines “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. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration." Oxford University Press continues:
