If there is one thing that can make you feel out of touch, it’s trendy lingo.
I am not too far removed from college, but on the occasions that I’m around my younger family members, I realize just how quickly things change.
In the newsroom, we were talking about a list of words recently added to the dictionary, and it is safe to say that I knew almost none of them.
Among the 313 new words or phrases added to Dictionary.com, here are some that stand out:
Digital nomad. Noun. A person who works remotely while traveling for leisure, especially when having no fixed, permanent address.
Trauma dumping. Noun. Unsolicited, one-sided sharing of traumatic or intensely negative experiences or emotions in an inappropriate setting or with people who are unprepared for the interaction.
Petfluencer. Noun. A person who gains a large following on social media by posting entertaining images or videos of their cat, dog or other pet.
Rage farming. Noun. Informal. The tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster.
Cyberflashing. Noun. An act or instance of sending someone unsolicited, unwanted, sexually explicit images or video using digital platforms.
While I don’t think I’m super likely to incorporate any of these phrases into my regular vocabulary, apparently more than enough people already have.
In an article explaining their newest entries, representatives from Dictionary.com wrote that “the addition of a word to the dictionary is not an endorsement, but rather a documentation of its use in the real world.”
“Our mission is to be descriptive – we work to describe and document language as it is really used (not just how we or others may want it to be used),” they added.
So, if these words are a reflection of our culture right now, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at new dictionary entries from 2013 to see just how much has changed in a decade.
Some of the new words from that year include:
Selfie. Noun. Informal. A photograph taken with a smartphone or other digital camera by a person who is also in the photograph, especially for posting on a social media website.
Binge-watch. Verb. To watch (multiple videos, episodes of a TV show, etc.) in one sitting or over a short period of time.
Digital detox. Noun. Informal. A period during which a person refrains from using digital or electronic devices in order to break a pattern of excessive or compulsive use, and instead prioritizes face-to-face social interactions, mindfulness, harmony with nature, etc.
Liveblog. Noun/verb. A blog containing entries about an event that are written and posted while the event is happening.
Emoji. Noun. A small digital picture or pictorial symbol that represents a thing, feeling, concept, etc., used in text messages and other electronic communications and usually part of a standardized set.
Defriend. Verb. To remove (a person) from the list of one’s friends on a social networking website.
I’m sure when these words were officially added to the dictionary, most of us were thinking, “Binge-watch? Are you kidding me?”
Now, I use every one of those 2013 words on a regular basis.
I can only hope that “cyberflashing” and “rage farming” fizzle out in a way that “selfie” certainly didn’t, but if the pattern holds, we might not be so lucky.
If only we all had taken a much longer “digital detox” 10 years ago.
–Kayleen Petrovia is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.