“I’m so eepy bro. Crashing out,” my friend groaned as she buried her face in her hands.
“Real,” I responded, as I continued typing out an essay on my computer. Did you understand this conversation? If you did, chances are that conversations like this are normal occurrences for you too. If you didn’t, welcome to a day in the life of a young person!
The terms used above are part of “brainrot”, (seemingly) meaningless internet slang popular on social media platforms like Tiktok and Instagram. It is the language of our generation. It is what we say to one another. It is how we think.
Yet, the brainrot used by the “younger generation” (I’m 19—the irony here is clear) has become increasingly unintelligible to me. It’s nothing to be proud of, but like others my age, I spend a lot of time on my phone. Despite this, I cannot keep track of the newest brainrot. Recently, a friend shared with me how her peers in university orientation kept repeating “67” and making strange hand movements that seemed to mimic an amateur juggler. Thoroughly mystified, I began my search for the origins of this mysterious number.
The fruits of my search are perhaps best exemplified by a r/SGExams post titled “what does 67 mean”, written by a JC student. The comments were as mystifying as the actions themselves. Here are some of them below:
- [deleted]: “6+7 =13 and the 13th letter of the alphabet is m and m stands for mangos and mangos are tuff icl”
- u/Commercial-Arm1199: “it’s the dark mango psychology”
- u/El1tek: “MUSTARDDDD six sevennnnn 🤪 mango 🥭 mango 🥭 mango 🥭😂😂😂”
I will spare you the rest of the comments. Thoroughly confused, I consulted my 17-year-old brother, who spends considerably more time on Tiktok than I do.
“[It] genuinely exists just to exist,” was his cryptic answer. Thus concluded my unsatisfying search.
The thing is: I thought I had a handle on brainrot just earlier this year. Does anyone remember Italian brainrot? True story: I once watched a friend get into an Italian brainrot-off with his junior that lasted a good 10 minutes. Those days are long-gone—I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say “tung tung tung sahur”. I’ve not thought about “skibidi toilet” in months—but that’s probably a good thing. “Delulu” used to be a regular on my vocabulary rotation but the consonants fit weirdly in my mouth now. In mere months, I’ve fallen behind on the latest brainrot, and had somehow lost all handle of the language of my people.
I’m not alone in this sentiment. When I conducted an informal survey amongst social media users aged between 14 to 21 to garner their thoughts on brainrot, I noticed that the older the respondent, the more likely they were to be unaware of the slang listed below, let alone understand their meaning. Some 20-year-olds even expressed despair at how they didn’t understand them (“I don’t use any of these.”, “I don’t understand any…”). Interestingly, I also found that people my age (19 and over) used different types of brainrot (think “cooked”, “bruh” and “gg”) than the “younger generation” (“67”, “fanum tax”, “unc”).
I asked my survey respondents to define some popular slang terms and use them in sentences.
| 67 | “no meaning. just exists.” | *when my friend does something* 67~ (include hand action) OR *awkward silence* 67~ (hand gesture) *immediate laughter* |
| Bopes | “short for bopian”“no choice.” | whatever this sucks bopes lah what to do |
| Tweaking | “going insane or used to describe something malfunctioning.” “to my knowledge it is synonymous with “crashing out”, so it’s like stressing out or feeling overwhelmed.”“like a minor crash out, when a small inconvenience does not warrant a full breakdown.” | My economics mid-term is tomorrow I’m TWEAKINGGGGG. |
| Unc | “someone considered old.” | unc doesnt get it 💔💔💔 |
| Chopped | “UGLY”“done for.”“individuals who are not as pleasing to the eye.” | ew that guy is so chopped |
Though youth of different ages use different brainrot terms, brainrot in general has given us the language to express ourselves. When asked to use “tweaking” in a sentence, which roughly means having a mental breakdown, many respondents chose to voice their academic concerns (“I don’t wanna study anymore I’m genuinely tweaking out” or “My economics mid-term is tomorrow I’m TWEAKINGGGGG”). These commonalities suggest that the understanding of brainrot is heavily encoded in its contextual use, like a secret privy to select witnesses. From an individual’s age, to the social media platform used and the amount of time spent on it, these factors ensure that only people who share similar life experiences and concerns can use it. As a result, it might be difficult to grasp that there are no hard and fast rules to brainrot. The most abstract of brainrot phrases are only funny when utilised appropriately. For example, the infamous “67” means nothing, but it’s funny to point it out to a friend when they least expect it. Brainrot gives us reason to laugh, even if it may seem ridiculous.
Indeed, perhaps being ridiculous is the point. Why must there be a point? Everything in our lives already has a point. We study all day to get good grades, participate in extracurriculars to build our portfolios, or go out to post pretty pictures on social media. Not having a “serious” purpose does not ruin brainrot’s value to us—in fact, it might just elevate it.
The term brainrot itself even has a self-conscious tone to it. After all, it literally denotes the degeneration of our mental ability. Some sites even categorise it as a disease. It’s understandable why—this phenomenon of youngsters using these incomprehensible, meaningless and rapidly-changing phrases might just be a symptom of the internet’s dominance in our lives.
Yet, rather than simply viewing brainrot as a tragedy that has irreversibly damaged our mental capacities, we should consider what it reveals about our digital behaviours. We use the internet to not only initiate new forms of communication, but also as a way to cope with the uncontrollable, escalating chaos of the world around us. Brainrot may seem stupid, but it is undeniably a symbol of how our generation, though different variants of brainrot, has learnt to laugh and survive in the volatile world we were born into.
The next time you reach for a brainrot phrase in your vocabulary, perhaps think about why you’re using it. Or don’t. Maybe the beauty of brainrot is that it’s never that serious. Maybe it’s the very thing our generation needs in this big scary world.