MIKE JUDGE DIDN’T INTEND FOR IDIOCRACY TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: How to sum up 2024? The Oxford University Press word of the year is ‘brain rot.’
Many of us have felt it, and now it’s official: “brain rot” is Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year.
Oxford University Press said Monday that the evocative phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” with its frequency of use increasing 230% from the year before.
Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
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Collins Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year is “brat” – the album title that became a summer-living ideal.
Remember the five minutes over the summer where the presidential election campaign of a then-59-year old sitting vice president in desperate need of a gravitas infusion tried to somehow adopt that word as a campaign slogan? Those were good times: ‘Kamala IS brat:’ Harris campaign goes lime-green to embrace the meme of the summer.
After Kamala Harris announced her bid for president, she reportedly raised a record-breaking $81m donations in just a day – but her most culturally powerful endorsement may have come from a single tweet.
As nearly all Democrats rallied behind the vice-president offering support in tweets and TV interviews, a perhaps unlikely voice weighed in: the British pop singer Charli xcx, who tweeted, “kamala IS brat.”
That’s high praise from the musician, who released her album, also titled Brat, last month. Brat is not just a name, but a lifestyle, one inspired by noughties excess and rave culture.
The archetypical brat, Charli explained on TikTok, is “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.
Brat summer essentials, again according to Charli, are “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, a strappy white top with no bra”.
Perhaps most importantly, Charli chose a neon lime backdrop for her album cover, one that’s sickeningly sweet, representing both the highs of a long night out and the impending crash of a hangover.
Canonical brats include the actor and model Julia Fox, who appeared in the music video for Charli’s 360 alongside a cast of fellow proclaimed it girls such as Chloë Sevigny, Hari Nef, and Emma Chamberlain. Now, Harris joins their ranks.
“That’s high praise from the musician.”
Incidentally, “Joy,” which was “Brat’s” replacement the following month, also brought some baggage of its own for the flailing campaign and its media enablers to deal with: No, the Kamala Harris campaign hasn’t adopted a Nazi slogan. People online have claimed Vice President Kamala Harris has adopted the Nazi phrase “Strength Through Joy” as her campaign slogan. That’s false.