I’m a frequent consumer of the internet, and it’s gotten to the point where I encounter something referential to Skibidi Toilet, Sigmas or, most recently, influencer-turned-boxer KSI’s new song “Thick of It” every time I open my phone.
This so-called “brain rot” content has taken the internet by storm. The Skibidi Toilet series collected 65 billion views on YouTube in 2023, and KSI’s infamous song reached number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The title “brain rot” can be a misnomer, as not all brain rot is created equal. The type of content varies. Brain rot is not only mindless content aimed at young audiences like Skibidi Toilet or Subway Surfers gameplay but also self-aware satire of this type of humor and the people who consume it. Popular creators include Natalie Tran and Evan Cronin, among others.
This type of content is more of a spectacle than anything. What constitutes brain rot is not merely lowbrow, nonsensical humor but the discourse surrounding it as well.
We don’t only watch this content unironically. We consume it nonetheless, but how we consume it can make the greatest difference.
These two modes of consumption are not mutually exclusive as the line between them is extremely fine. While it’s not exactly brain fuel — very little short-form content is — the specific term of brain rot feels unfair.
If it’s being consumed by people who know exactly what it is, then it’s not brain rot, is it?
This, however, does not extend to small children. It has been proven that young children should have extremely limited access to screens, let alone short-form, fast-paced content.
Little entertainment media is intellectually stimulating nowadays, so what difference is there really between watching a random cartoon and consuming a Minecraft gameplay video?
Why do we, as self-aware consumers of this content, feel the need to take such a harsh moral stance on this purported genre that is in nearly no way worth the mental effort? Why do we feel the need to rename the age-old phenomenon of mindless entertainment once again with brain rot? Does it really serve us any benefit to be so alarmist about a subject so trivial?
Maggie Hennefeld, professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, said there are many comparisons to draw between film in its infancy and the content we consume online today.
“Some of the earliest films were less than 30 seconds long, and they just existed to capture everyday reality or to represent some kind of silly accident or surprise,” Hennefeld said. “There are films from the 1890s about boxing cats. We all know that a lot of the internet today is dedicated to people’s cats, right? So there are a lot of similarities in terms of the short-form absurdities that sort of go viral on the internet today, and what cinema was used for in its very first decade.”
In this way, brain rot, and a lot of what has come to define the online space, is not exclusive to the internet. At this point, it is inextricably linked to visual media itself.
As people, we sometimes want to immerse ourselves in material that is not necessarily substantive. We don’t always need to read Dostoyevsky at the beach or watch a Ted Talk on our lunch break. Sometimes a break can just be a break.
According to Mira Jasmin, a third-year student, brain rot can be a mental reset.
“I do kind of feel like I spend time on social media to sort of turn off my brain,” Jasmin said. “Sometimes I want to see content that doesn’t really mean anything, just because I’m trying not to critically think at that moment. I think there’s a lot of stuff on social media that’s kind of stupid, but sometimes I’m okay with absorbing some of the stupid stuff.”
Em White, a second-year student, considers brain rot content a guilty pleasure.
“I’ll watch (YouTube Shorts) when I get ready,” White said. “I will walk around my own home, scrolling on and on, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this sucks, but I love it.’ It might be damaging my brain, but I’m having a good time.”
Our culture has a rocky relationship with media that we consider “lowbrow” or not up to whatever arbitrary intellectual standard we consider acceptable for consumption.
In the public sphere, it seems that a lot of people tend to criticize these forms of entertainment while privately indulging in them. In this way, brain rot content is not any different from traditional guilty pleasures like reality television, sappy romance novels or silly cartoons.
No matter how much discourse takes place, the numbers don’t lie. People like this form of entertainment, and will continue to tune in as long as it’s produced. It will continue to be produced as long as it’s profitable, and this loop will continue until a new form of entertainment in this same ilk comes along.
There is no need to continue the shame cycle that has dominated a large portion of our media landscape for decades at this point. Brain rot is just the most current iteration of the same trend we’ve been seeing for years.
As people who can healthfully consume content on screens, we don’t need to be so harsh or critical of what we consume as long as we are aware of what we’re consuming and it’s part of a balanced media diet.
Realistically, even those of us who aren’t brain-rot connoisseurs, such as myself, need not moralize so much of our media consumption, so long as we’re media literate and aware of what we’re consuming and why.
The kids are alright, and they have been for well over a hundred years.
