Do you ever feel like the digital world is spiraling downhill?
Websites that once were helpful are now harmful. Social media feels like a battleground of toxicity. Personalized algorithms seem more like cages than conveniences.
This collective digital malaise now has a name: enshittification, This is the Word of the Year as defined in Australia’s 2024 edition of the Macquarie Dictionary (1).
A Departure from the Familiar
While last year’s pick, cozzie livs (short for "cost of living"), reflected the challenges of economic reality, this year’s winner captures something broader and darker. Enshittification may not yet be a household term, but it’s painfully relatable. Coined by author Cory Doctorow in a 2022 blog post (2), the word describes the lifecycle of digital platforms that start by serving users, then shift to exploiting them for profit, and eventually collapse under their own greed.
Doctorow’s succinct definition resonates:
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users;
then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers.
Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back
all the value for themselves.
Then, they die.
The Macquarie Dictionary committee explained their choice by noting:
This word captures what many of us feel is happening to the world
and to so many aspects of our lives now.
From Platforms to People: The Broader Meaning
Enshittification now reflects a cultural sentiment: the belief that many aspects of modern life - digital and beyond - are deteriorating. Whether it’s due to spam-ridden inboxes, AI-generated junk content, or algorithms prioritizing engagement over substance, navigating the internet increasingly feels like a chore, or worse, a survival game.
What began as a critique of online platforms has grown into something larger.
This broader use of the term - the enshittification of everything - has turned it into a symbol of collective disillusionment.
The Shortlist: A Glimpse Into 2024’s Linguistic Trends
While enshittification earned the top spot, the shortlist reveals other intriguing words that highlight cultural shifts.
Brainrot: Internet content so mind-numbing it feels like it’s rotting your brain.
Sigma: A term for individuals who thrive independently, valuing solitude over social connections.
Skibidi: A wildcard word with no inherent meaning, used as an adjective for anything from "cool" to "dumb," depending on context.
Fairy porn: A subgenre of romance fiction featuring mystical creatures and explicit content.
Honorable mentions included rawdogging (a personal endurance test designed for social media spectacle) and right to disconnect (a legal concept granting employees the right to be free from work-related communication during off-hours).
The Internet: A Mirror of Modern Life?
As platforms like Spotify, Amazon, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram shift from serving users to exploiting them, it’s clear why enshittification resonates. But perhaps the word’s deeper power lies in its universality. Beyond the digital world, it speaks to frustrations with declining standards, the erosion of quality, and the sense that, well, things just aren’t as good as they used to be.
Whether we’re truly living in the age of decline or merely reacting to its perception, one thing’s for sure: enshittification isn’t going anywhere soon, except maybe to the next edition of your favorite dictionary.
Footnotes
The Macquarie Dictionary was first published in print in 1981 and has been online since 2003. Its reputation has gone from strength to strength, and it is now nationally and internationally regarded as the standard reference on Australian English. The Macquarie Dictionary features a complete record of English as it is used in Australia, from the colorfully colloquial to the highly technical.
Writer Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification in an essay about Amazon in 2022. He was talking about what a nightmare it’s become to shop on the site.
Pluralistic: How monopoly enshittified Amazon/28 Nov 2022
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