Julia Friese explains in her column what lies behind the term “brain rot”.
Three observations:
1. “young man, …
“Brain rot” – i.e.: brain rot – was chosen as the word of the year 2024 by the Oxford Dictionary. It means the state after a long period of social media consumption: You are strangely nervous, with a slightly shortened attention span due to the bombardment of seemingly always new things, in a constant tension of fear and disgust, disguised in a general distrust because of everything you see , but is filtered and self-promotion – or now even AI content! The people who speak to you are not people at all. Have you heard that Beyoncé is supposed to be a reptilian, i.e. a lizard creature? And Donald Trump is president of the USA again. Oh, was that news? Everything is strangely unreal.
People who study conspiracy theories were not surprised by Trump’s renewed presidency. Nothing is as it seems, everything is connected and planned anyway. According to political scientist Michael Barkun (“A Culture Of Conspiracy”), these are the core elements of every major conspiracy theory.
Be it lateral thinkers, Q-Anon or the Proud Boys, they all have the assumption in common that “we” are being duped by an elite and that “we” (either white men, the West, the bio-German population, etc.) are being wiped out and therefore need a savior (sic!). Both Q-Anon adherents – who believe that the elite rape children who they order using pizza order codes and then drink their blood – and the Proud Boys have chosen Donald Trump as their savior. And he retweeted their theories and recently made the lateral thinker Robert Kennedy Jr. to cabinet member.
2. there’s no need to feel down…
Conspiracy theories are stories made up of always similar, i.e. mimetic, building blocks. And TikTok is a place where memes are copied. A place that invites interpretation and speculation. Like Taylor Swift, who calls herself a mastermind and consciously leaves clues in her videos, posts and liner notes that Swifties are looking for to interpret. That creates content! And analyzes that go beyond the mark. In the end, the “FreeBritney” conspiracy had a kernel of truth: Britney really didn’t have unfiltered access to her socials and therefore communicated in codes. However, Spears is not a clone and not a reptilian.
OR? People love good stories. And isn’t it also pleasant to believe that nothing is arbitrary, but EVERYTHING IS PLANNED a long time ago? There are simply no coincidences in good stories! Moment! Doesn’t Q-Anon say the elite torture children? What was up with Jeffrey Epstein again? Didn’t he have sex with minors on his private island? And now P. Diddy! Wasn’t he also seen at his parties with all these power holders and stars and weren’t there also complaints against him from minors at the time?
3. …cause you’re in a new town
The fact that the party photo elite is now about to be overthrown by the party photo elite Donald Trump and Elon Musk is somehow confusing. Like the fact that the hero of the heterosexual and fascist “Proud Boys” declared the gay anthem “YMCA” to be his song, to which he always danced in the same sequence, so that it is now a Trump-TikTok dance with descriptive Emoji sequence: Punch downwards with your fist five times. Purse your lips and make cross-country skiing movements with your fists on both sides.
Move your fists sideways complacently. Wait, wasn’t there already a “YMCA” dance? So “Young Men” now means “Proud Boys”? Have you already seen that Söder had himself photographed working at McDonald’s exactly like Trump during the election campaign? Um, are you feeling brain rot right now? Are you seeing double somehow? Don’t worry, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Pssst! We should all go tik and tok! China wants that! We should become so brain red that we call for strong men who will fix everything – in their own way…
This column first appeared in Musikexpress issue 2/2025.