Enshittification: Macquarie Dictionary 2024 Word of the Year, you may not have heard it, but you’ve felt it

It’s that time of year when we start to reflect on what was, and when we start handing out superlative “X of the year” gongs.

Chief among the nods is the Word of the Year — which by the time all the world’s dictionaries make their selection, is more like Sentence of the Year. But we digress.

A dictionary’s Word of the Year crowns a term that has developed widespread social and cultural capital. One that very effectively captures the mood of a society or a year.

In 2023, Australia’s very own Macquarie Dictionary picked “cozzie livs”, a shortened version of “cost of living”; the year before, the word was “teal” the catch-all to refer to Independent candidates that were elected en-masse at the federal election.

Now the dictionary has declared its 2024 pick: Enshittification.

Ever heard of it? Perhaps not, but the word certainly captures the mood of the last 12 months.

The word became popular in 2023 after Cory Doctorow, author of The Internet Con, used it to describe the process of gradual decline before digital platforms “die”.

“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,” Doctorow wrote.

“Finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification.”

Many say what Elon Musk did to Twitter, now X, is the perfect example of “enshittification”.

The Macquarie Dictionary committee, who chose enshittification as the 2024 WOTY, said the word “captures what many of us feel is happening to the world and to so many aspects of our lives at the moment”.

Macquarie Dictionary defines enshittification as: “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

It’s the malaise of logging onto social media to check in with your Friends and Followers (or to mindlessly scroll) only to be served nonsense: inane sponsored content, rage-baiting hot takes spewed to a screaming podcast host, that one verse from that one Sabrina Carpenter song, clickbait news spam, and everything in between.

But it goes beyond the internet algorithms that are challenging us to lose our minds with each swipe. Enshittification also represents the belief that everything at the moment — from politics, to the economy, the environment, culture, shopping (gah! supermarkets!) — is just a bit... well... shit.

Honourable WOTY mentions

As it is any year, many words were contenders for the Macquarie Dictionary 2024 Word of The Year crown.

“Right to disconnect” was among them, referring to the laws that granted employees the right to refuse to engage in work contact or activities outside their paid hours. As was “social battery” referring to the supposed energy reserve someone has for social interactions.

The almost beyond-definition workings of Gen Z lingo were also among them: like “skibidi” (it can mean cool, bad or dumb, depending on context) and “sigma” (referring to a person who is independent were among them).

Other words emerged from the annals of internet culture: such as “brainrot” (to describe internet content that is so low quality it has a net bad effect on the brain), and “rawdogging” (to endure an event without external stimuli, like taking flight without a phone, book, or in-flight entertainment).

“Fairy porn” was also a contender, thanks to the rise of BookTok content and NFSW romance fantasy (romantasy) books.

One may argue that the fact most of these words make absolutely no sense signals the enshittification of the Word of The Year.

Other Dictionaries’ Words of the Year

Australian National Dictionary Centre: Colesworths — the portmanteau of the country’s two biggest supermarket brands Coles and Woolworths, who have become public enemy #1 this year.

Cambridge Dictionary: manifest — a 600-year-old word that rose to new prominence in self-help circles (influencers and life coaches, particualrly), as a verb and practice one can employ to achieve your dreams (here’s how!)

Collins English Dictionary: Brat — the Charli XCX album that has come to define an entire way of being. To be Brat is to be “confident, independent” and to live life with a “hedonistic attitude”.

Dictionary.com: Demure — another internet one spawned from creator Jools Lebron who used it to advise her followers how to behave “very demure, very mindful” in various settings.

Oxford Dictionary: Voting is open for the dictionary’s short list which includes: slop, romantasy, lore, brain rot, demure, and dynamic pricing.