I, unfortunately, am a victim of brain rot.
Despite my efforts to avoid being influenced by the cacophony of Gen Alpha memes, I find myself saying “demure,” “erm,” and “queen never cry” more often than I’m proud to admit.
I’d like to think I’m a person who is current and knows what’s trending, and I’ve noticed the most recent batch of slang, in particular, has been cycling quicker than it has in the past. While slang “aesthetics” aren’t a new concept (valley girl, emo, punk), these words exist as a part of popular vocabulary for a shorter and shorter amount of time. Even as someone who is a part of the younger generation and quite active in popular culture, I can’t keep up with the ever-changing language.
Take the word demure. It won #1 on Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year and a spot on Oxford Dictionary’s shortlist of Words of the Year for 2024, second only to “brain rot.” Up until July 2024, demure wasn’t very common in people’s everyday vocabulary. Used only in the traditional sense, it was seldom found outside of serious essays and poetry. But on August 18th, that changed. Suddenly, demure was 14 times more prevalent than before (Dictionary.com).
Its origins of popularity are from TikTok (shocker), with a woman referring to her makeup and clothing for work as demure, commenting that she “doesn’t do too much” and that other women are being too showy when going to the workplace. While this is interesting in itself, a comment stemming from internalized misogyny is now being used casually predominantly by women; it’s the lifespan of the word that is unique. Not only did the use of the word demure become widespread very quickly, but it died out just as fast.
Demure was definitely a part of popular culture, but now it’s near obsolete among the generation it was once so popular in. There are many reasons why this could be, but the most likely is the press it got from the older generations; once a word is being used amongst Millennials, Gen-Z no longer sees it as cool but instead cringy. Countless articles from NPR, NBC, and CNN were, and are still, being written on this word. Somehow, it showed up in the vocabulary of those not in Gen Z, and now it isn’t used. However, words like “chat” and “blud” don’t have any large-scale discussions on them, so they are still being used by younger generations.
This phenomenon of slang cycling is in part caused by the word in question being taken up by older people and therefore falling out of popularity, but even more so due to the role social media plays.
I’m sure most people under the age of 30 would say they have an addiction to their phone or social media, including me. Whether they recognize it or not, this addiction is, by extension, shortening the general attention span of the people affected.
This is also causing a rising demand, outside of screen time, for more speed and less time “wasted.” This appears in all kinds of fields, ranging from food service to entertainment; Jimmy John’s is freaky fast, and media is shortened to 60 seconds or less. As the “need for speed” increases, it becomes standardized. Then, someone comes along with a new technology to make production faster, which becomes standardized. The cycle continues indefinitely, and companies that focus on quality over how fast they can serve a customer drown in the weight of everyone else’s dust.
Society has always had some form of a “go, go, go” mentality which is only being exacerbated, in recent years, by the short-form content on social media and increased desire, on the individual and global level, for more and now. This is causing the erasure of presentness and the concept of savoring a joyful moment; the positive emotions of community and love are becoming more and more fleeting. What’s to stop the world from continuing this cycle until it’s too late?
