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Wednesday, December 04, 2024

LEVERAGED BY BRAIN ROT

by Mark Danowsky


Following a public vote in which more than 37,000 people had their say, we’re pleased to announce that the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024 is ‘brain rot’… ‘Brain rot’ is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”. —Oxford University Press, December 2, 2024



I remember the landscape 

before chatbots 

 

After all, it was

only two years ago 

 

My mind is a limited 

large language model 

 

I take in material

I share material

 

I forget if I took time

to synthesize the material 

 

My biases and missteps 

are not about extra fingers 

 

I fear The Paperclip Problem

less than I fear the race

 

This race has been trending 

towards the bottom 

 

We know major players 

but consider a dark horse 

 

It could all go sideways 

except for the 1%  

 

Meantime, we’re burning 

all available fuel 

 

The deafening buzz—endless 

noise on my mind

 

All I can talk about 

is what I consume 

 

While I remain aware 

I contain stories 

 

The storyteller in me

is trained by misdirection  

 

I mean the need to hold

irreconcilable truths 

 

While seeking the answer 

to some nebulous void within 

 

I know this brain rot

as a weak pulse 

 

I fear mediums 

and messages 

 

The troubling satisfaction 

of pulled attention 


My hacked mind 

knows susceptibility

 

Everything is content 

and I am a heavy user 



Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. He is the author of four poetry books. His fifth book, Take Care, is forthcoming from Moon Tide Press.