The Rise of “Brainrot”: When Internet References Take Over
If you or someone you love speaks almost exclusively in internet references — “It’s giving golden retriever boyfriend energy” or “Show it to me Rachel” — they may be suffering from a condition known as “brainrot.”
The term refers primarily to low-value internet content and the effects caused by spending too much time consuming it. Online discussion of brainrot has recently grown so widespread that some social media users have begun creating parodies of people who seem to embody the condition.
One such example is TikTok user Heidi Becker, whose rapid-fire videos string together one internet reference after another. Her videos have garnered hundreds of thousands of likes, with lines like “It’s giving golden retriever energy” and “I really like hot girl walking and I really like girl dinner.”
Accusing someone of having brainrot is not a compliment, but some people evince a hint of pride in admitting to the condition. A recent BuzzFeed quiz challenging readers on obscure internet trivia was headlined: “If you pass this brainrot quiz, your brain is 1000% cooked.”
Some social media accounts are dedicated to creating “brainrot content,” which has become its own entertainment subgenre. The TikTok user “Fort History” takes clips of movies and TV shows and dubs them with the latest internet lingo.
Taylor Lorenz, author of “Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet,” sees “brainrot” as synonymous with the phrase “broken brain.” Both terms apply to those who have become so warped by what they see on the internet that they have lost the ability to function in the physical world.
The term “brainrot,” which appeared online as early as 2007, is meant to be playful. But its rise in popularity relates to growing recognition of a disorder that researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have called Problematic Interactive Media Use.
Michael Rich, a pediatrician who founded the Digital Wellness Lab at the hospital, said that his patients refer to brainrot as “a way of describing what happens when you spend a lot of your time online, and you have shifted your awareness over to the online space as opposed to IRL, and are filtering everything through the lens of what has been posted and what can be posted.”
Despite the negative connotations, many individuals seem to consider having brainrot a badge of honor. Some even compete for the most screen time in the same way they do for high scores in video games, joking about their obsessive internet usage but not using it as motivation to get away from it.
As the phenomenon of brainrot continues to gain traction, it raises questions about the impact of excessive internet consumption on our daily lives and mental well-being.
