My 54-year old dad has taken to watching TV in a particular way: watching two at once.

Demure skibidi toilet rizz Kai Cenat fanum tax gyatt jittleyang army oi oi oi Andrew Tate fuhuhluhtoogans mew Brat summer sigma nonchalant dreadhead professional yappers crash out Duke Dennis mogging hawk tuah ahh only in Ohio rizz party chat freak matched #BookTok #Trope “Haiiiii :3” John Pork edge king W alpha aura poochina FE!N. Gold 

“Brainrot” is everywhere.

September 10 in front of Australia’s parliament, Labor Party Senator Fatima Payman delivered a speech opposing age limits for children on social media. Her reasoning was based around the premise that young people should have an outlet for speech; it was a little lost, however.

“To the sigmas of Australia, I say that this goofy ahh government has been capping […] They’re capaholics. They’re also yapaholics. […] Just put the fries in the bag, lil bro,” Payman said. “If [this] becomes law, you can ‘forgor skull emoji’ all about watching Duke Dennis or catching a dub with the bros on Fort. Chat, is this Prime Minister serious? Even though he’s the Prime Minister of Australia, sometimes it feels like he’s the CEO of Ohio. I would be taking an L if I did not mention the opps who want to cut WA’s gyatts and services tax.”

She ends her speech interestingly, too: “Skibidi!”

It can be assumed – because Payman never made an official response – that the purpose of her using “brainrot” (sidebar: In this story, I’ll be using the term “brainrot” often. Operationally, I’ll be defining “brainrot” as you may think, the “rotting” of someone’s brain, i.e., a combination of a reduced attention and tendency to quote trendy terms overly-often)  terms in her speech was either to establish relatability or attract attention, either way proved unsuccessful. However, I think that older people should realize that this form of communication (/connection) to Generation Z and Alpha crowds is more degrading than beneficial. It fails as a rhetorical tool (shoutout Lang!) because it lacks genuine usage and thereby alienates younger audiences – it’s belittling and also, just stupid. 

It also plays into the very same thing that Generation Z is made fun of for. Gen Z can’t do this, can’t read, write, speak – but these adults and politicians not being able to form significant connection to audiences (or rather, thinking that this is the best method to do so) raises the question of their ability to deliver eloquent, persuading speeches in the first place; it also places in doubt in their faith in the future of the youth. If you – as a politician – believe that the youth could only pay attention to your message when addressed as sigmas, you may not be fit to represent that same demographic. 

Don’t get me wrong; I recognize that the constant barrage of Generation Z completely defying authority and acting as if they cannot also be in the wrong can be annoying.

I also recognize that Generation Z/Alpha often uses brainrot terms unironically and that these terms have been adapted into many people’s vocabularies, including my own. And that their attention spans are exceptionally short. Mine is too. Gen Z (and I think you get this point but the same goes for me) often rely on several forms of entertainment at once to stay stimulated. But I’d like to make an additional case: all other generations are brainrotted, too.

I don’t know which random phrases adults used when they were younger, so I won’t make my case around that (except, what is to be noted is that memes, quoting them and referencing them, have existed and been appreciated by a variety of age groups for as long as online media has). Instead, I’ll focus on two facets of them which I deem rather brainrot-y: adults’ also-low attention spans and the overuse of corporate jargon, as well as its spillage into daily life.

First, low attention spans. Case study: my dad.

At 54 years old, my dad is at peak criticize-younger-generations-for-social-media-use age. But he doesn’t really have the right to. He watches TV in a very particular way, and I’ll describe it by using the time we watched the Trump/Harris presidential debate as an example. Yes, the debate was playing on the TV screen. But below that, my dad has another TV screen set up. On it, the Mexico-New Zealand soccer game was playing (I’m blaming this on low attention span rather than love for the game because notably, it was a friendly international game). That wasn’t all: he was on his phone, too, switching between X (formerly Twitter), his email, and WhatsApp.

This is how he watches all his TV. And I’m sure it’s also how many other adults watch it, too – the same adults who criticize younger generations. According to YouGov, around 55% of adults use their phones either fairly often or very often while watching TV. In January 2019, Statista estimated it to be just around 60% for the 55+ age group. In my own observations, there hasn’t been one adult who I’ve seen watching TV without picking up and using another device. So much for the kids being doomed because they watch TikTok storytimes at the same time as slime videos, right? This leads me to deduce that “brainrotted attention spans” aren’t a generational thing, but a novel, temporal development; we didn’t have the tools for this pre-21st century. 

(Note, it doesn’t only happen when watching TV. “I think my phone addiction is hereditary,” Jason Pham ’25 said. “My dad [irons] clothes and in between he [scrolls] through Threads”).

Another example here that I didn’t think of before was the gullibility of older adults. While they blame Gen Z for having no media literacy, adults on Facebook frequently comment on, like, and republish obviously-fake AI generated images, thinking they are real all. the. time.

To the second main point, adults have taken to using corporate buzzwords more and more repeatedly simply as casual phrases. How many times have you heard a millennial or Gen X-er tell you “let’s circle back”? Describe something as having “lots of moving parts”? How about the phrases “bring to the table” or “touch base”? How many times have you heard someone described as a “rockstar”?

These phrases may seem more proper and polished than Gen Z’s, but the truth is that they’re equally as empty. For adults to think they’re above us because they have more original, sophisticated, gnarly, insert other buzzwords here, vocabulary is simply wrong. We’ve all fallen victim to phrase-theft. No generation is alone in having an affected attention span or being hoodwinked by AI; let’s stop pretending that young people are unique in their attachment to the internet and collective culture.