A slang term for supposed mental damage done by overconsumption of trivial online content triumphed over a shortlist that also included “lore,” “demure” and “slop.”

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.

See what other terms made the Oxford University Press shortlist and what other publications chose as their word of 2024.

Brain rot” beat out five other finalists, including “dynamic pricing,” “lore,” “romantasy,” “slop,” and Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year “demure.” “‘Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life,

Capping off a year that proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that non- A.V. Club readers are spending too much time ingesting the worst shit imaginable online, the Oxford University Press has named “brain rot” Word of the Year.

You might have heard of the term 'brain rot' as an allusion to mindless scrolling in the voids of social media. The term, mostly used by young people (Generation Z and Generation Alpha), kept being thrown out,