The votes are in! The Macquarie Dictionary, the prime source for all things Australian English, has its word for 2024...
🥇 Enshittification
meaning: "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."
✍ Canadian-British writer Cory Doctorow coined the term in 2022 (his daily blog at pluralistic.net is a great read) and gained much traction last year. Enshittification is something we all have experienced, particularly with social media platforms.
Other words/terms to rate highly were:
🥈 right to disconnect
🥈 rawdogging
🥈 social battery
🥈 brainrot
The Macquarie Dictionary did a great job with its shortlist of words and terms this year. Some of the others I particularly liked are:
🥉 overtourism (definitely a hot topic this year worldwide)
🥉 sigma (I honestly thought this would figure higher in the voting)
🥉 rent bidding (very Australian, particularly in Sydney)
🥉 incidentaloma (that's happened with my father)
🥉 pig butchering (an apt Chinese saying that's made its way into English)
🥉 skibidi (if you're a TikTok fan, you'll know, and it actually originates from a 2018 song by exiled Russian punk-pop-rave band Little Big!)
* If you need some help with their meanings, here's a cheat sheet for you.
If you need your text or content to reach sigma level for the Australian market, let's talk. Contact me at info@nicknasev.com.