brain rot

Brain rot is the feeling that your mind is turning to mush from consuming too much low-quality online content. It also describes that kind of content itself: endless, silly, attention-grabbing videos and memes. Oxford named brain rot its Word of the Year for 2024.

What does brain rot mean?

Oxford defines brain rot as the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as the result of overconsumption of material, now particularly online content, considered trivial or unchallenging. People use it in two ways:

• The effect: “I scrolled for four hours and now I have brain rot.”
• The content: “My little cousin only watches brain rot videos.” Meme-heavy Gen Alpha slang like skibidi and fanum tax is often described this way.

It is usually self-mocking rather than a serious medical claim.

How to use it

• “I need to read an actual book, this app is giving me brain rot.”
• “The group chat is 90% brain rot at this point.”
• “Sorry, I can only speak in memes now. Brain rot.”
• “That show is pure brain rot and I love it.”

Where it comes from

The phrase is surprisingly old. Oxford traces its first recorded use to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden in 1854, where he criticized society for valuing simple ideas over complex ones. It came roaring back online in the 2020s to describe endless scrolling culture, and Oxford announced it as Word of the Year in December 2024 after a sharp rise in use.

Related terms

• doomscrolling: endlessly scrolling bad news
• chronically online: spending so much time online it shows
• skibidi: Gen Alpha meme word
• touch grass: go outside and log off
• rage bait: content made to make you angry

See more terms like this in our Gen Z slang dictionary.