‘On skibidi, I gyatt to start looks maxing to rizz up some Sigma baddies.’ If this jumble of words is confusing, you’re not alone. ‘Brainrot’ is the internet slang term that umbrellas the nonsense jargon of the sentence above. It exploded on the internet in the early months of 2024 but became more prevalent with each passing month.
‘Brainrot’ is a social media phenomenon that started with users creating their own memes. These memes grew in popularity and the majority took on forms of idioms. “I would say it’s like internet memes and what’s popular I guess, ” Molly Langdon, freshman, said when asked to define ‘brainrot.’
The internet spreads media like wildfire; trends take off in a matter of hours. Social media instantly delivers video after video, and with that ‘brainrot’ is easily consumable. “Well, obviously social media, but specifically TikTok,” Langdon said. “I don’t see it as much on Tumblr or Instagram.”
‘Brainrot’ grew in popularity and became more normalized, making it into the everyday vocabulary of some, purely in an ironic way… maybe. “I feel like in real life it’s just like even funnier because it’s like what are you even saying right now, what am I even listening to,” Marcel Kelly-Hacala, senior, said.
However, this gibberish may follow the same pattern as other slang and just be generational. “I feel like it might be a generational thing, I hear a lot of younger kids using it,” Kelly-Hacala said. It is not only used by Gen Alpha it has reached older generations too.
In Video & Audio class when discussing trademarking Melanie Zapper incorporated the “very mindful, very demure” trademark case from the phrase’s recent popularity.
“I feel like every generation has its languages, and as a teacher, I’ve seen things change and ebb and flow… Ours would be slang that came from a movie because the internet but it wasn’t like [big],” Zapper said. Jeff Meilke noted that common phrases regularly used in his youth came from Chappelle’s Show. Is ‘brainrot’ generational or will it last?
“It can be anything because it’s so random, they just keep making more,” Fin Jimenez, a sophomore, said. ‘Brainrot’ is ever-transforming with the favor of internet users. It’s already spanned months; the possibility of continuing is plausible.
Either way, ‘brainrot’ will be remembered by the internet and slang users everywhere. As Jimenez said, “It’ll forever be in our hearts.”
