brain rot

What does brain rot mean?

Brain rot refers to material of low or addictive quality, typically in online media, that preoccupies someone to the point it is said to affect mental functioning. Both the state of preoccupation and resulting mental degradation are known as brain rot.

The word is also spelled as brainrot, brain-rot.

Examples of brain rot

So yeah, I done got myself addicted to my first phone brain rot game.
—‪@hulkhoquinn.bsky.social‬, Bluesky, 27 Nov. 2024

In hair and makeup for another photo shoot, [actor] Greta Lee read extremely brainrot-y phrases aloud — “Mother’s face card never declines! Queen is in her lunch era!” — from an iPhone screen with confusion.
—Dylan Kelly, Hypebeast, 19 Jul. 2024

Y’all, I have Bridgerton brain rot. Ever since season 3 dropped, I eat, sleep, and breathe Bridgerton content.
—@abgaily1, Threads, 30 May 2024

Where does brain rot come from?

Brain rot combines brain (in the sense of “mind, intellect, critical faculties”) and rot (meaning “a state of disease or decay,” as in food or wood).

The term gained mainstream attention in 2023 and 2024 in connection to several trends involving repetitive, nonsensical use of content about such Internet slang terms as Fanum tax, gyatt, sigma, skibidi, and rizz. Around this time, brain rot became the popular name for this content—often absurdist, ironic, and intentionally poor in quality—as well as for an unhealthy state of being addicted to and addled by it.

While newly prominent, the term it is not itself new, and can be found in several independent cases since at least the mid-1800s. The earliest known example comes, notably, from Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden: “While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” As a term in specific reference to digital media production and consumption, brain rot has been in use since the early 2000s.

How is brain rot used?

Brain rot can be used as a noun itself (‘Stop looking at that brain rot’) as well as attributively, to modify another noun (‘My brother wouldn’t stop using all this brain rot YouTube lingo at the dinner table’). Depending on speaker and context, its tone can range from dismissively pejorative (‘worthless brain rot’) to ironically playful (‘just published some new brain rot for my fans’).

Brain rot is not itself an official medical condition. However, some healthcare practitioners or related experts may use the term colloquially in association with a phenomenon known as Problematic Interactive Media Use, involving symptoms of cognitive impairment resulting from overconsumption of digital media.