What is ‘brain rot’? Do you have it?

If this sounds like mumbo jumbo, it’s not.

These viral memes, when used separately or together, are often referred to as ‘brain rot’.

Brain rot (also written as brainrot) is not a medical or scientific term.

What is brain rot?

It’s a phrase used to describe content considered to be of low value, such as internet memes, and having a negative effect on the viewer — a side effect of ‘doomscrolling’ or being ‘chronically online’.

Ironically, brain rot is also a meme in itself and has led to the creation of intentional, self-aware brain rot content.

ANU’s Dr Neil Jeyasingam is a psychiatrist who has examined the use of video games as therapeutic tools and has a keen interest in social media.

He says there are two definitions of brain rot, one of which is used to describe the content itself.

“The idea of indulging and absorbing large amounts of irrelevant, low-quality information that is thought to be associated with deteriorating functioning and a loss of intelligence, hence the brain rot,” he said.

The second definition of brain rot refers to the phenomenon of associating things such as memes, gaming and pop culture references with the real world.

A TikToker (right) thought he had developed ‘internet brain rot’ because he recognised Thomas Lea’s famous That 2,000 Yard Stare painting (centre) from internet memes (top and bottom right). Credit: (left to right): TikTok @joshlunchbox, Thomas Lea (1944), Instagram @spongeglob, TikTok @therealkurtangle.

“When you are repeatedly exposed to media in a particular field, in a particular vein or a particular situation, you tend to associate other things with that,” Jeyasingam said.

One example of this is a TikTok video in which a person recognises the painting on a book cover because of its use as an internet meme rather than for its original artistic purpose, labelling it as brain rot.

The painting was Tom Lea’s That 2,000 Yard Stare, which portrays the shell-shocked look of a World War Two soldier, and is often used in response to content that is considered brain rot.

ANU’s Dr Neil Jeyasingam is a psychiatrist who has examined the use of video games as therapeutic tools and has a keen interest in social media.

Where does the term come from?

The term brain rot has been used online since as early as 2004 but has seen a steady rise throughout the 2010s before exploding in popularity in the latter half of 2023, according to Google Trends.

Source: Google

Notably, brain rot is a disease that gamers can contract in the 2011 game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, contributing to the term’s use online throughout the 2010s.

The earliest posts about brain rot on X, formerly Twitter, can be traced back to 2007, in which users described reality dating shows, video games and “hanging out online” as either being brain rot or causing brain rot.

But Jeyasingam says although the term ‘brain rot’ is relatively new, the phenomenon of people disparaging various forms of media content is not new.

“It’s like the old ‘if you keep watching the television, your eyes will go square’,” he said.

“And back when newspapers were invented, all these strange young people who have lost the art of conversation and are having their faces buried inside newspapers.”

How does brain rot affect us?

Implicit in the idea of brain rot is the fear that those who spend too much time on screens will become less intelligent, such as ‘iPad Kids’, Gen Z and Gen Alpha children raised in the digital age.

Jeyasingam says that brain rot is not necessarily good or bad, and the reason people enjoy content such as memes and games is due to how our brains operate.

“What happens when you watch a meme or when you read a meme? For the most part, nothing. But the reason why we do it is that they’re kind of entertaining, they are fun to look at, which is why we keep on indulging in them,” he said.

“And because they were amusing, there is a positive emotional connection with them, which means that bang, they straight inside the head, which is why you find it so much easier to absorb stuff if you’re being entertained.”

The psychiatrist says that brain rot only really becomes a problem when people limit themselves to a certain kind of content.

“A simple analogy would be, you could probably have a diet of just chocolate, but you wouldn’t get very far even though chocolate tastes really good.”

“But a balanced diet may not be as much fun, but you’re definitely going to get a lot further in terms of your health and satisfaction and growth and development.”

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