Lacking in confidence? Feeling a bit sub-par? I have just the mindset for you, and it’s encapsulated in a single word: brat. Brat is different things to different people; a spiky attitude, a garish aesthetic, even a campaign slogan (the phrase “Kamala IS Brat” proved snappy enough to go politically viral, even as its meaning remained a little hard to pin down). And though it started life as the title of an album by pop singer Charli XCX, it has clearly captured something of the spirit of the age, one that goes beyond a potentially short-lived but exuberant “brat summer”. Channelling self-acceptance as well as rebelliousness, it’s a fitting word for 2024, a year when hedonism and anxiety have combined to form an intoxicating brew.
The runners-up in this year’s list speak to some of the same tensions, and often have their roots in the language of various online communities: maybe we’re all a bit delulu (“unrealistic in one’s ideas or expectations” – a reduplication of “deluded”) about the problems facing us. One response is to wallow in clickbait and low-quality memes, dissolving into giggles at something you’re unlikely to remember an hour later – be careful, because that can rapidly lead to brainrot. Another is to dive into romantasy, a hybrid genre (and word, fusing “romance” and “fantasy”) that feels so obvious, it’s a surprise it’s taken so long to come up with the label. Well, ok, the label’s been around for a little while – but it’s really only recently that it’s started to shift serious units in the publishing world. One romantasy author, Sarah J Maas, has sold more than 37m copies of her books, which include the Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses series. She might soon be able to boast, in the language of so many of her fans, that she’s on the cusp of her JK Rowling era.
An alternative to all this escapism is to take the hairshirted, puritan route, rawdogging your way through life. This trend, which involves eschewing the comforts of the internet age, and above all, the dopamine hit of smartphone apps, is epitomised by the idea of taking a long-haul flight and doing nothing but staring at the back of the seat in front of you. It has its roots in the manosphere, a sometimes toxically masculine corner of the internet that also gave rise to looksmaxxing, the process of pulling out all the stops to improve your physical appearance using diet, fitness, grooming, even orthodontics, in an effort to boost one’s social confidence.
There is more to contemporary life than memes and social media, of course. In the real world, the millions who flock to historic cities and beauty spots (ok, maybe they’ve been inspired by Instagram, who knows?) have provoked a backlash that’s become a movement, even an ideology: anti-tourism. Locals have taken to the streets in places such as Barcelona to protest against the crowds, economic distortions and environmental impacts of mass tourism, and argue for a more sustainable approach. And in electoral politics, the Labour party’s massive success in July reminded us that supermajorities – majorities so large they enable a government to pass pretty much whatever laws they want, without much in the way of opposition – are a thing. The term is also used to refer to a threshold, often two-thirds of the electorate, that has to be reached before major changes, like constitutional amendments, can be made.
Many of the words on this year’s shortlist aren’t exactly new, but they’ve certainly been given another lease of life, coming back into fashion for reasons that are sometimes hard to fathom. Aside from brat, first recorded around 1500, another good example is yapping, with yap being a word imitative of the sound of a bark or yelp that has been around since the 17th century. Its resurgence reminds us that however the world changes, certain things remain the same. There’ll always be people, even in the internet age, who like to go on a bit, using the very old-fashioned medium of their own voices.
Written by David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings – How Language Really Works.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
