Satire | How to overcome brain rot

Brain rot is the Oxford University Press word of the year for 2024.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Do you obsessively watch videos of skateboarding dogs till four in the morning — even when you know you have to be up by six, no matter what? And when you do wake up at six, instead of rolling out of bed, do you end up scrolling again? Do you walk purposely from the living room to the kitchen, open the fridge, pick up a cauliflower, and realise you’ve no clue what’s in your hand or why you came to the kitchen? Do you sometimes read an entire paragraph from a book of moderate difficulty — say, Well Done, Secret Seven — and comprehend nothing because your brain is still ‘buffering’? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, then you have ‘brain rot’ — the Oxford University Press’ (OUP) word of the year for 2024.

Unfortunately, there is plenty of fake news about brain rot, its causes, symptoms, and cure. In service of public interest, let me set the record straight. 

The first symptom of brain rot is trouble remembering basic things, like, for instance, why you became the chief justice of India — is it to talk to god or to uphold the Constitution? If you have brain rot, your brain would be unable to recollect which one it is. 

Nobody is at fault

Another key symptom: reduced attention span. Example: have you seen our MPs in action? If yes, have you ever seen them sitting down and quietly listening when somebody is speaking? They never do. They inevitably interrupt and start yelling and screaming. Why? Degraded attention spans. It’s the same reason they can’t listen to your problems. But it’s not their fault — it’s just brain rot.

This column is a satirical take on life and society.

The third major symptom is difficulty organising information. Have you ever filed an RTI requesting some basic information, such as, for instance, “How many years have passed since Jawaharlal Nehru stopped being the Prime Minister of India?” If you did, you may have received a reply stating, “This information cannot be provided because it would take too much time to collate the data.” That’s a classic brain rot response. Such brains have lost the capacity to organise the past as a linear progression in the direction of the present. Instead, they get stuck in the past, and they stay there, gathering rot.

Now, thanks to the OUP, the rest of the world has woken up to brain rot. But it has been endemic in India for a long time. I would date its onset to the rise of WhatsApp culture in the country, especially the infestation of ‘good morning’ messages, typically adorned with images of flowers, babies, sunsets, or all three. 

Try and imagine the kind of brain a person must have to want to wake up at 4.30 in the morning and spend the next 45 minutes on their smartphone searching online for images of ‘good morning’ greetings and sending them to 50 different groups, of which many would contain members in time zones where they’re about to fall asleep but thanks to the ping of these ‘good mornings’, they would now pick up the phone they had put away, and spend the rest of their night scrolling away until it’s their turn to spam the universe with ‘good morning’ messages. Under such sustained assault, even Einstein’s brain would’ve turned into mental goo. 

Science has no clue 

Strangely enough, medical science still has no clue what causes brain rot. Other than some research linking it to excessive screen time, there is nothing. But unless we identify the cause, how can we find the cure? 

Well, this is where I can help. As someone who has been a student of brain rot for close to two decades, I believe I have zeroed in on the single biggest factor responsible for it: the brain. Take away the brain, you take away brain rot. This is such an elegant and obvious solution to a global health emergency, I am amazed no one has thought of it already. But I guess that’s what brain rot does even to the sharpest of brains. 

Anyway, if we can make a brain-shaped thingie that combines the latest ChatGPT engine with Elon Musk’s Neuralink and a miniature CCTV camera, we should be able to do away with the brain while retaining its core functionalities — interfacing with screens and generating an endless stream of data. With the latest advances in AI-enabled neurosurgery, the procedure should be a cakewalk. Either way, with a brain or without one, I wish you a brain-rot-free New Year.

The author of this satire is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.

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