Lately, I’ve really enjoyed watching content by Visual Venture on YouTube. He has a really clean style, a good voice for narrating, and makes videos on interesting topics. These topics are usually a bit on the darker side of internet culture and are essentially mini documentaries. Some of the videos my partner and I have watched lately have been on weird (and sometimes horrifying) Tiktok trends, the world of child and partner influencers, cults, and most recently, the topic of today’s journal entry, brainrot.
I don’t want this to sound like I’m bashing on the younger generations; I’m writing this more to share my deep concern and frustration with how things are going.
Each generation has their own slang and colloquialisms that no one old than them seems to understand, or at least that’s the running joke. While I can’t think of anything from when I was a kid, as a Millennial, I am sure there were things my parents just shook their head at. I can’t deny that I’m at the point where I have absolutely no idea what “kids these days” are saying, and that’s to be expected. I’ll also admit that until a couple of days ago, I didn’t really think the term brainrot was a real thing. I guess I just assumed it to be one of those “internet words” that we use. I certainly did not expect it to have such concrete and identifiable aspects to it.
Another thing that I’ve been hearing about more and more is “terminally online” or “chronically online”. I’ve associated this with people that don’t have much of a social life outside of maybe some friends they chat with online combined with excessive amounts of doomscrolling. Situationally, I’ve also associated it with hyper-fixation on social media and news articles and the effects that they can have on our mental health. There’s a link there, but it feels more tangential to me as I am writing this.
And of course, we all know about “iPad kids”, though it seems to be more out of mockery than anything. Starting with my generation, technology has become more and more advanced and involved in our lives. Millennials are probably the last generation to know what it was like to grow up without constantly being around technology. Sure we grew up with televisions in the living room, but it wasn’t until 2001 that the first iPod came out, 2007 when the iPhone came out, and the iPad in 2010. By the time the first iPad came out, I was already 18. Okay, that’s wild to think about. I remember having various iPods growing up and eventually an iPod touch in high school, I think? That means I grew up almost entirely without any portal ever-present technology in my pocket. Just as I write that, I am reminded of those mini videos player, the VideoNow, and boy is that a memory that must have been locked away real deep in my mind until now. All of this to say, we had technology in our lives, but we were far from permanently connected to it and the internet. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like as a kid these days with all the technology that we have. At the risk of sounding old: we really take a lot for granted today, don’t we?
Sorry, it’s been a long day and I’m barely functioning enough to write this, time to get back on topic. I had a questions yesterday about where the line is between (potentially weird) generational vernacular and a breakdown in the ability to communicate. I’m not here to do a literature review on journal articles from a slew of psychology journals, and I’m certainly not qualified to speak, or write, with any authority on this topic. I’ve barely done any research into this topic, but what I’ve seen already combined with my experiences to far really does concern me.
If you haven’t watched Visual Venture’s videos on Gen Alpha and Brainrot, I high encourage you to. I’ll mostly be referencing those videos here. I’m hesitant to say that I “learned” a lot from the videos because I am only assuming he’s able to speak with some authority or knowledge of the topics. I will say, however, that I can much better see the depth and gravity of the situation. Like I said before, I honestly thought it was just an overused internet term and I sort of brushed it aside. I’ve known that kids shows have become increasingly fast paced, brightly colored, and overstimulating, but I never really connected that with Brainrot. It’s been interesting to see how a generation who is entirely growing up embedded in technology is developing, but it’s also scary to see.
I’m truly and deeply concerned about the health of this generation. I know every older generation goes on about how the younger generations spend too much time on their phones and devices. And even Millennials got our fair share of that as mobile devices became more and more common. But the big difference is that we didn’t grow up with tablets and phones in our hands. Heck, my first phone was a Nokia brick phone and it wasn’t until halfway through high school that I got a Motorola Razor. Seeing children, actual young children, addicted to their tablets and phones to the point of inconsolable tantrums and meltdowns is wild to see. Looking to slightly older kids and pre-teens we see how much social media and infiltrated their minds and twisted their perceptions of reality.
There have always been impossibly high beauty standards for women, and even men, too, but things are on a completely different level today. It used to take actual skill and effort to “photoshop” pictures, but as time went on it became easier and easier. Now we’re at present day where all you need is a filter than can alter how you look in real time. Honestly, people 15 years ago may have called that withcraft! Beauty has been twisted in weird ways with filters and its becoming harder and harder to know what’s real and what’s not. I’m concerned with what happens to someone’s mind when they see one thing on their phone screen, but something else in the mirror. That simply cannot be good for their mental health when combined with all the peer and societal pressure to look perfect.
It’s scary to think that the younger generations are so far behind in social skills, reading comprehension, problem solving, and critical thinking. I used to laugh off the concerns of people who said kids were spending too much time on their phones 10 years ago. Well, it seems like we all should have listened better because we can see what happens on the extreme end of things by looking at Generation Alpha. Again, I’m not here to shame, judge, or laugh at them. I hope they’re able to develop and mature at an acceptable (the best word I could think of to replace normal) rate. What’s even scarier, though? Combine brainrot’s corrosion of critical thinking skills with the current US administration’s push to dismantle the education system and we have the recipe for a dangerous future.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a dramatic increase in cases of depression in the next decade from how social media is twisting reality and polluting the minds of these young humans. When I think back to what I went through, I am scared to imagine how things would be if all of that took place in the present day.
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