Brainrot and its real life implications

The term 'brainrot' has become prevalent in modern day slang which has seen use time and time again in the newer generations Z and alpha. Even I myself have to pop out the occasional "what the sigma" as a form of satire between friends and I must say, it has really stuck to me. Now, brainrot is not some new revolutionary idea that we have created all of a sudden. The manipulation of words to create a 'modern' linguistic vocabulary can be seen in history such as the 'lolcat' language that emerged in the early 2000s at the start of the ever-growing internet. The term brainrot was coined with an emphasis on the nonsensical nature of the terms which can be compared to ruining your mental capabilities.

Brainrot saw a great emergence in the COVID era where many where restricted to their homes and therefore had to flock to the internet. The many children doing online school would soon need to communicate daily on the internet to talk with friends and as a result created a whole new form of language to adapt to this. The popularity of memes in this era as a result where way more popular as people were more exposed to them due to the greater media usage at the time. Some early memes then were the 'Quandale dingle' and 'Kumalala vs Savesta' memes which spread to schools with people constantly repeating said phrases as a result. We may also see early roots of the 'Ohio' meme in the 'Can't have anything in Detroit' memes which demonstrate how memes can change from a pre-existing one from not long ago as well. All in all, the history of brainrot demonstrates how certain situations, such as the global pandemic, may be a cause for the creation of brainrot in a time where the use of technology was large.

Politics have always been a part of memes, as it on the form of government that is instated upon on which we base entire societies. To start, I would like to look at an example of its influence in politics where we use the American presidential campaign as an example. Some terms of brainrot such as 'Joever' can be a nihilistic approach to the scene of American politics and a consideration of it being a joke from its chaotic nature. This can be seen by many bombastic events happening in this decade such as the attempted assassination of Trump, a global pandemic and the attack on the Capitol. What we may also take away from this is the fact that brainrot terms in politics may demonstrate certain biases for certain political groups as well such as the "eating the dogs" phrase said by Trump during the 2024 presidential debate to demonstrate incompetence and a feeling of being out of touch.

Culturally though is what I think brainrot changes the most as it changes very quickly to align itself with current trends and events. The GTA VI meme spawned out of the irony of the game taking so long just to be released and displays the prominence that the gaming industry plays in a developing technological society. In some occasions it may also reflect a certain joke that is so ironic it becomes funny again such as the post-iroic 'hawk-tuah' and 'low taper fade' memes that are currently trending as of now in 2024. Then, it may be a promotion of currently popular internet icons such as the Costco guys and The Rizzler who have come into the spot light by the encouragement of the internets many netizens.

I do not think though that brainrot is really restricted to any categories when defining where it is most used as it can be used in almost all situations due to the vast influence of internet slang being used in everyday life and changing how we talk to this day. Maybe with the development of AI, the changes in languages may not even be our own doing as it may be procedurally generated to satisfy our humor in a future date. I think our past truly reflects how we change our language so easily just to satisfy what we define as popular at the moment and the impact it will have on future speakers. I hope to encourage this though and become a part of a new age of people adapting and changing to their surroundings, creating a new culture from the old.