Have you ever heard people in the hallways or generally outside yapping about some sigma or the new Italian Brain Rot? Well, this is basically brain rot, and no, it doesn't actually mean your brain is rotting—that's just an acronym. For example, the new Italian Brain Rot, where many people are saying “Tung tung tung sahur and brr brr brr patapim, tralalero tralala.” But what is this New Italian Brain Rot? It’s an AI that prints out images that a user requested, for example, a shark with shoes or a bat as a human holding a bat. 

What started as a way to express humor online between people, appearing on 4chan around 2003–2004, shortly after the site launched in October 2003,  the first few “brainrot” memes were simple jokes such as the Troll Face, Pepe the Frog, RickRolling, and Nyan Cat. As time moved on and people used social media more and more, many people got creative (and bored), and the term “brain rot” came to life. emes started to not make any sense, such as the Italian Brain Rot, Skibidi Toilet, Sigma, and rizz. These words are known as brain rot words since they don’t make any sense and are not actual words. You may have heard of words like “yap”, “rizz”, and “baka”; all these are old but still used brain rot terms that mean that your vocabulary is filled with random memes and words from social media. 

Brain rot, according to Forbes.com “describes the supposed mental deterioration caused by spending excessive time consuming low-quality content. It’s such a familiar phenomenon in our internet-saturated lives that Oxford University Press named “brain rot” its 2024 word of the year. 

One of the first popular brain rots was Skibidi Toilet. It was created when a YouTuber posted a head inside of a toilet known as skibidi toilet. This was very entertaining to Gen Z kids because they found it humorous. It wasn’t until later on that people around the world started saying skibidi Toilet as a joke in response to the video not making any sense. The thing that made it a popular brainrot was the fact that it wasn't funny that it was funny. Seeing so many videos about skibidi toilet embeds it into everyone's mind, which causes it to be used a lot for no reason. Nowadays, toddlers spam the same voice lines of Skibidi toilet as US uncs are forever left with memories.

Sigma was originally and still is a mathematical symbol “Σ” but it has been associated with Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, who made a funny face. This brain rot word is still extremely massive as it still hasn't died. It's meant to describe someone who is cool, dominant, and tuff. For example, “The way John walks is so tuff”. The word Sigma was so popular that some made a song about it, Sigma Boy Song.

Rizz is still used a lot in this generation, and it's how skilled your “seduction skills” are and the ability to attract someone romantically. There are also other forms of rizz, such as rizzy, rizzler, and rizzatron, but they all mostly have the same meaning, which is flirting. This brain rot word has come from TikTok and other social media and inserted itself into teen slang. 

Brain rot has affected many people, such as fellow Junior classmate Jorge Garcia. Jorge was seen recently with many filled Italian pictures, and in his statement, he said, “I like it. I find these very funny because of how random they are. Every time I see one of these pop up in my fyp, I can't control my laughter at this. This has helped with my boredom.” Many may think brain rot is bad, but it's really a boredom cure because it's funny and helps your attention span. Jorge is a prime example of this because he has been through so much, but brainrot has always lifted him up.

Overall, Brain rot is something that is funny for someone who has an interesting humor, and it is affecting the more younger generation as we see on the internet and through personal observation.