Averaging over 37,000 votes worldwide, the Oxford Word-of-the-Year for 2024 emerges as Brain Rot.

According to Oxford University Press, the first use of the term brain rot traces back to the 1854 book Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau criticized what he saw as a decline in intellectual standards, with complex thinking drastically failing, and compares this to the 1840s “potato rot” in Europe.

Oxford University Press said, “Experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.”

The word brain rot gained traction on TikTok. The literal definition is “rotting your brain”, and is typically used to describe TikTok slang. The word surfaced after the rise of “skibidi toilet”. Other memes have been made into brain rot such as “Ohio” which references the idea that everything is weird in Ohio. Other terms include “rizz, mogging, Livy Dunn, baby Gronk, edging, gyatt, and the rizzler.”

Brain rot is an unserious joke among Gen Z, but it is very cringe when Millenials and Gen Alpha use it legitimately.

The runner-up for word of the year by popular vote was demure, which also blew up on Tiktok. An influencer, Jools Lebron, started the trend by sneak-dissing women who come to work looking unprofessional and saying her makeup was “very demure and mindful. I don’t look like a clown when I come to work.”

Both words became popular due to the rising influence of TikTok. It seems that social media is becoming the driving force of the world and is now influencing people’s vocabulary.