Hii guys, how are you doing? I hope everything is alright. Today I would like to talk about the origins of the term "brainrot" that I am encountering more and more across the Internet and because I am a person who loves to investigate things for the sake of knowledge and will to share said knowledge, in this post I am going to talk about it, hoping not to be too tedious.
Brainrot: meaning
Anyway, brainrot is an internet slang term used to describe jokes about an individual's mental decline from consuming mindless or low-quality content online. It's also a humorous way to criticize trivial, nonsensical or not-so-smart memes. The term was popularized in 2020s but it's very likely that it originated in the early to mid-2010s, amid growing concerns about the impact of internet culture on the minds of netizens.
Possible origins
One of the earliest usage of the term about content that is perceived to "rot the brain" was posted to X by users IzzyNeis and carrissa on June 25th and August 23rd, 2007, the former describing reality dating shows as brain rot and the latter describing being online in general as brain rot.
Online growth
The term saw an increase in search interest in late 2011 for its use in the game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, in which the player can contract a disease called brain rot, however, only throughout the 2020s that 'brain rot' memes became a viral topic on the internet. For example, on February 27th, 2022, Instagram user realjoemema posted a today I offer you meme using the term, garnering over 5,000 likes in a year. "Brain rot" got so popular online that some news outlets have written articles about the impacts of the meme on netizens, including the story of a netizen who felt so chronically online that it spotted the origin of the 1,000 Yard Stare meme while in a library. This is the article about it:
https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-brain-rot-memes-explained-2024-1
Examples of Brain Rot memes
The most notable example is the Skibidi Toilet and all memes derived from it. The lack of context, meaning and formatting of the content spread about the series makes it more "rotten" to digest while you consume it on social media. Another example of this type of meme happened on February 6th, 2024, TikTok user pre5leyyeah posted a comedy skit video of a man offering kids a "sigma meal skibidi slicer" food. None of those words are meant to be combined, but they do sound funny in the context of the video. A common 'brain rot' meme format is the mix of several other internet slangs paired with AI voiceover added to the context of a memorable scene or dialogue from a TV show, film or song. For instance, on April 2nd, 2024, TikTok user sunnnylol recreated the ""Avatar: The Last Airbender", using only 'brainrot' slangs.
To Sum Up
So it's basically used to describe the state of a person losing touch with the real world as a result of the consumption of meaningless, chronically online, hyperstimulating content, or as a negative term to describe seemingly meaningless buzzwords most associated with members of Gen Alpha.
I suggest this article that delves more in depth about this phenomenon outside the mere meme culture: https://www.newportinstitute.com/resources/co-occurring-disorders/brain-rot/
It's interesting how the article mentions zombie scrolling as a brain rot behaviour because this reminds me of an episode from The Amazing World of Gumball where this behaviour is shown in a comedic way.
Academic Nerdy Stuff
This term has many interesting elements even from a linguistic point of view and more specifically the impact of Internet slang and Computer-mediated communication (CMC) on Standard English and standard languages in general. It's interesting how the primary motivation for using a slang unique to the Internet is to ease communication and so it saves time for the writer, but at the same time it takes two times as long for the reader to understand it. On the other hand, similar to the use of slang in traditional face-to-face speech or written language, slang on the Internet is often a way of indicating group membership. Internet slang provides a channel which facilitates and constrains the ability to communicate in ways that are fundamentally different from those found in other semiotic situations. Many of the expectations and practices which we associate with spoken and written language are no longer applicable. The Internet itself is ideal for new slang to emerge because of the richness of the medium and the availability of information. Slang is also thus motivated for the "creation and sustenance of online communities". These communities, in turn, play a role in solidarity or identification (1) (2) or an exclusive or common cause.
There is still a huge debate if Internet slang has a positive or negative effect on language and linguistic cognitive skills and we have two main positions: prescriptivists and descriptivists.
The former tend to have the widespread belief that the Internet has a negative influence on the future of language, and that it could lead to a degradation of standard. Some would even attribute any decline of standard formal English to the increase in usage of electronic communication. It has also been suggested that the linguistic differences between Standard English and CMC can have implications for literacy education.
The latter have counter-argued that the Internet allows better expressions of a language. Rather than established linguistic conventions, linguistic choices sometimes reflect personal taste. It has also been suggested that as opposed to intentionally flouting language conventions, Internet slang is a result of a lack of motivation to monitor speech online. Hale and Scanlon describe language in emails as being derived from "writing the way people talk" (this is what I've studied during Linguistics and Translation Studies courses), and that there is no need to insist on 'Standard' English. English users, in particular, have an extensive tradition of etiquette guides, instead of traditional prescriptive treatises, that offer pointers on linguistic appropriateness. Using and spreading Internet slang also adds onto the cultural currency of a language
Hale, C. and Scanlon, J (1999). Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. New York: Broadway Books
I find extremely interesting linking the effect of the use of Internet slang in ethnography, and more importantly to how conversational relationships online change structurally because slang is used (3).
Although Internet slang began as a means of "opposition" to mainstream language, its popularity with today's globalized digitally literate population has shifted it into a part of everyday language, where it also leaves a profound impact (you have to request a copy directly from the authors to read the full-text). I myself used it when I took notes during classes (especially during German literature and Translation Studies classes) and I am frankly happy to have learned some of it because I see it as a cultural enrichment and while I wouldn't use it in more formal contexts I wouldn't mind it in a more comedic way. If I were a teacher I would use it to make subjects more easy and fun to digest.
Frequently used slang also have become conventionalised into memetic "unit[s] of cultural information". These memes in turn are further spread through their use on the Internet, prominently through websites. The Internet as an "information superhighway" is also catalysed through slang.[34] The evolution of slang has also created a 'slang union' as part of a unique, specialised subculture (4). Such impacts are, however, limited and requires further discussion especially from the non-English world. This is because Internet slang is prevalent in languages more actively used on the Internet, like English, which is the Internet's lingua franca (this opens another huge anthropological discussion about necessity or not to make other languages more included in the academic world, think about the extremely interesting Japanese anthropological studies on Ainu people written more in Japanese than English due to difficulty at mastering English by a good portion of Japanese population, but this is another topic I can't and won't discuss here due to the length of this article).
fun fact: as of January 2020, only approximately 25.9% of the online population is made up of English speakers.
Oh well it was a nice and loooong reflection, see you and 770880 or 親親你抱抱你!
References and footnotes:
(1) Yin Yan (2006) World Wide Web and the Formation of the Chinese and English "Internet Slang Union". Computer-Assisted Foreign Language Education. Vol. 1. ISSN 1001-5795
(2) Wei Miao Miao (2010) "Internet slang used by online Japanese anime fans." 3PM Journal of Digital Researching and Publishing. Session 2 2010 pp 91–98
Hale, C. and Scanlon, J (1999). Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. New York: Broadway Books
(3) Garcia, Angela Cora, Standlee, Alecea I., Beckhoff, Jennifer and Yan Cui. Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. Vol. 38 No. 1 pp 52–84
(4) Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne Marie (2008) Deciphering L33t5p34k: Internet Slang on Message Boards. Thesis paper. Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
https://jkorpela.fi/lingua-franca.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20332763
