Brainrot

We live in an age with smart phones, smart computers and smart televisions. Hell, we have even got smart homes to live in. However, who are apparently no longer smart are human beings. Today, we will look at one of the catchiest terms created in the modern world, brainrot.

I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.

– Albert Einstein

In my previous article, I, at length, talked about my fondness for the English language. It is an inseparable part of my life, and one I love to channel through the written word in an aim to entertain, engage and in a sense inform, my readers.

Today, we will talk more about the evolution, rather the devolution, of the English language, and try to find whether there is some deep rooted reason for this. (Spoiler alert, it’s us).

The vastness of the language we use in today’s day and age is unprecedented. We have words describing everything in the world, and more, with the same word even holding different meanings in different contexts. Mind you, I don’t mean homonyms, I mean the same word.

One such word is “cool”. Cool can mean okay, and also, well, cool. This is part of what we generally call colloquialism. The benefit of colloquialism is making language simple, in addition to having a completely aligned elegant side of the spectrum in place. We have seen more words like these pop up recently.

Meme, for example, is another word, coined as early as 70 years ago, with origins in Greek and British English. This adds to our regular lexicons and makes it easier for us to communicate with contemporaries and peers. This also introduces an element of versatility, and leaves the mark of a generation, for the future ones.

You must have noticed certain words boldened in the previous few paragraphs. Wondering why?

I have done this in an attempt to illustrate the immensity of the general vocabulary of an average human being (in this scenario, I am the average human being). However, the devolution of this generation is startling to me.

Recently, I came across this word, which sounds like the most random thing you might have ever heard of. Matter of fact, it is not even a word, it is just a noise.

The word is “skibidi”.

Upon hearing it, I instantly acknowledged that the word didn’t occur in my mental dictionary, and I would for sure have to look it up. And apparently, skibidi could mean “bad” or “cool”, given additional context. Now if you’ll ask me which cool, I have no freaking clue.

In the process of researching for this surreal word, I fell down an internet rabbit hole. There seems to be a whole phenomenon surrounding this and many other words and concepts, being referred to as brainrot. While the word itself has a root in the word “rot”, people are wilfully participating in it, and promoting it as well.

To explain what it means, brainrot is literally people rotting their brains by incessant online content consumption. This leads to numerous mental blocks like brain fog, lethargy, loss of decision making power, increased irritability (among many others).

Brainrot isn’t just limited to language. It is being used to make viral music, and as everything with even a slight degree of virality is susceptible to, it is also being used to market such music, and products as well. All of this blew my mind, while simultaneously raising a fascinating question.

Why is something negatively connoted gaining so much momentum?

Not one thing about thing is common about the phenomenon, and while people are discussing it, there seems to be no real impact on society, because we are just as online as we have been in the past 10 years, if not more.

The causes of this phenomenon, in my humble opinion, are two fold.

1. The Flow State

According to Hungarian-American Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a person can achieve “flow” state by engaging in activities which are not so easy that they induce boredom, while not so difficult that they cause anxiety. Brainrot content is equipped with both of these qualities.

The content is engaging enough to not cause boredom, while it doesn’t, at least on surface, alter hormones to induce a stress related response. Cell phones & apps/websites are strategically designed to capture human attention and retain it, and the right kind of content is bait to keep the fish (us) on the hook (brainrot).

2. Repetitiveness

All brainrot content has a common element, which is repetitiveness. Repetition is biologically programmed in human subconscious to make us feel safe, make us feel comfortable. As long as all human primitive desires like food, drink and sex are fulfilled, humans tend to find the last one, which is comfort and safety.

Brainrot content leverages this human facet to induce safety and comfort to complete the cycle, thereby making it addictive like narcotics.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂