OK, so "brat" is out and "demure" is going to rule in 2024. The latter has been named Dictionary.com's word of the year, with searches for the word seeing a "meteoric rise" of some 1,200% between January and August. As CNN reports, the spike in people who apparently don't know what demure means was largely driven by—you guessed it—a social influencer: TikToker Jools Lebron, who has some 2.3 million followers.
"You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful," goes one of the posts that inspired the likes of Kim Kardashian, RuPaul, and Jennifer Lopez to glom on. "The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like (her sisters) Patty and Selma. Not demure," Lebron says. Other words that made the shortlist:
- Brainrot: Too much time on terrible social media.
- Brat: Per Dictionary.com, "someone who is confidently rebellious, unapologetically bold, and playfully defiant."
- Extreme weather: Well, you can probably guess how we got here.
- Midwest nice: "A courteous and agreeable manner, often involving self-deprecation, politeness, and avoidance of conflict." This has been around for a while, but you can probably blame Tim Walz for its resurgence.
- Weird: Well, "weird" beat out its sibling "strange" by 200% this year, but by 426% in searches related to politics.
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