CNN
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As you read this, look around. Are you still in bed? Piles of clothes and boxes of food strewn across the floor? Do you have chips on your papers? Have you broken your self-care routine more times than you can count? Don’t you care? If so, you might be in “goblin mode” – voted by the public as the 2022 Oxford word of the year.
According to the Oxford University Press (OUP), the publishers behind the Oxford English Dictionary, the word describes a behavior “without self-pity, laziness, malice, or greed, in defiance of human behavior or expectations. ” – situations many have become accustomed to during lockdown.
Social media can provide great ways to improve yourself, from waking up at 5 a.m. and drinking a green smoothie, to keeping a journal, exercising and planning your weekly meal plan.
That time may be on the way. In its place is goblin mode – a different attempt to improve yourself.
The OUP word of the year – referred to as the Oxford word of the year – was chosen by the public for the first time. A group of lexicographers at OUP gave people a chance to: “Goblin mode,” “metaverse,” and “#IStandWith.”
“Goblin mode” won, with 318,956 votes – 93% of the total. “Metaverse” was second and “#IStandWith” was third.
Casper Grathwohl, president of OUP’s Oxford languages, said in a press release on Monday that “the level of participation in the campaign surprised us.”
“Given the year we’ve just been through, the ‘Goblin mode’ we’re all dealing with is very sad right now. It’s nice to know that we’re not perfect, we’ve always been forced to show it on our Instagram and TikTok feeds,” he said.
The term was first used in 2009 but appeared on social media earlier this year, OUP said. It gained notoriety after a fake headline claimed that rapper Kanye West and Julia Fox had previously broken up after he “went into goblin mode.”
“Then the popularity of the word will increase in the following months when the Covid restrictions are eased in many countries and people come out of their homes,” according to the OUP.
“Apparently, it took the form of people who rejected a return to ‘normal life’ or rebelled against unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles based on social media.”
The popularity of the term is also linked to the growth of new social media sites like BeReal, where users are invited once a day to post a photo of whatever they are doing. Thank you for carefully managing your social media feeds. hello colony mode.
Release is an example of examples of when the word is used. Among the most obvious things mentioned in The Guardian: “The Goblin looks like you wake up at 2am and roll into the kitchen wearing only a long t-shirt to make a snack. different, like melted cheese on salt.”
“People are embracing their inner old man, and voters are choosing ‘goblin style’ because the Word of the Year is here to stay,” Grathwohl said.
