Last month, 19-year-old TikTok creator Charlotte declared it “officially rotting in my room season.” While undeniably referring to the social hibernation that can come from colder weather, for many young people, last year’s winter “rot” turned into an entire 2022 of rotting. A phrase that’s come to describe staying inside during depressive episodes, “rotting in bed” or “rotting in my room” has become mental health short-hand that’s permeated online culture. If you’re not coming across the multiple “rotting in bed” memes, you might be complaining of technological “brain rot” or even wearing some of the current fashion trends that resemble decay (hello fairy grunge-core). This year, the internet rotted from the inside out, so what does that say about the state of our mental health?
The phrase “rotting” online has become an internet anti-aesthetic aesthetic similar to its predecessor “goblin mode”, which is Oxford’s 2022 word of the year. Like goblin mode, rotting has ties to Reddit posts as far back as the early 2010s. “While others are out making memories they will cherish forever, I am rotting away in my room alone,” one person wrote in a depression forum over five years ago. While many rotting memes are humorous depictions of life away from social media’s curated lens — it comes as little surprise that rotting is trending at a time when apps like BeReal are showing us how many of our friends spend their days in bed — the phrase has also become a socially acceptable way for people to talk about the most pressing mental health issues of our time, including loneliness, depression and suicidal ideation.
Jamie Cohen, assistant professor of media studies at CUNY Queens College, New York, says that, aside from studies that point to a rise in diminishing mental health, the rising cost of living merged with the “decay of social media” has opened the door for more expression of our displeasure out in the open. “These ‘rot’ memes are a very blatant expression of mental anguish in a way that is cynical, ironic and simultaneously, honest,” he says. “Memes are cultural surplus, so when we max out on ways to express ourselves conventionally, we make reductive media online.” Jamie says that Gen Z’s openness and acceptance of discussing mental health topics also enables more rot posts and memes, with rot being a form of “algospeak” to avoid content moderation or flagging for concern.
After countless lockdowns, young people around the world are using social media more than ever before. This has created a cycle of “rot”, with doomscrolling causing anxiety and the culture of comparison and cyber-bullying online becoming a rising mental health concern for children and teenagers. The irony is, however, that social platforms have also become a dominant force of self-expression, making the source of some of our issues also the platforms we turn to to talk about them. “I think the rotting conversation is a way of recognising we aren’t alone and that others are having similar feelings,” says Cohen. “This conversation would have been taboo a decade ago when we were posting our best lives to create FOMO; now we’re using social media to come up for some air every so often.”
Jennifer Reid, a Philadelphia-based psychiatrist and host of The Reflective Doc podcast, says that as the number of individuals struggling with anxious thoughts, depressed moods and insomnia increases, there is a parallel increase in voices sharing the difficult experience of modern life online. “If memes or online humor are able to discuss the challenges of the human condition in an inclusive way, to bring together rather than isolating individuals, they can be a powerful force for relief, increased awareness and eventual change,” she explains. Jennifer says that humor can be an important weapon against apathy and hopelessness, but the next steps include decreasing the stigma of mental illness, limiting disinformation about psychiatric disease and increasing access to affordable, high-quality treatment.
While meme culture has long been a coping measure for navigating the perils of modern life, trending Instagram accounts like “suffering meat” showcase an increased desire for the internet to implode on itself in the grossest, messiest way possible. It’s why some of the biggest celebrities of our time are shitposting and why Elon Musk’s early moves on Twitter were met with complete memeification. It’s also why “letting it rot” has been trending on Chinese social media channels this year, as young people lean into “self-indulgence and open decay” away from the pressure of unattainable life expectations. In an era of mass information and overstimulation, “rotting” is the visual reaction to the madness. Joshua Klapow, a clinical psychologist, performance coach and creator of the account Mental Drive says that “even the process of ignoring the information from social media is a brain processing exercise”.
“Endless scrolling, which most of us have fallen victim to at one time or another, is an example of how our brains are pulled in when information (whether it’s good, bad, relevant or irrelevant) is put in front of us,” he says. “We have less patience for long-form information, and get easily distracted from the onslaught of information that comes at us from every direction.” Jennifer describes scrolling as “junk food” for our brains. “If you’re really hungry, you are much better off looking for nutrient-rich food, because junk will only satisfy momentarily,” she says, noting that activities more likely to build healthy relationships, engagement and meaning are the “nutrient-rich food” in the metaphor. In other words, we’re posting about rot because our brains quite literally feel like they’re rotting.
If 2022 was the year of “rot”, or a sign that our emotional and mental states are being taxed, Joshua hopes that 2023 will be the year that we “say to ourselves that our mental health collectively needs much more attention”. This, of course, is near impossible for individuals to navigate alone against a backdrop of an impending recession, climate doom and the feelings of overall societal collapse. With this in mind, it’s less about each person “pulling themselves” out of the rot, than it is about collective organising to cut out the source of rot altogether — the billionaires and people in power that keep us in a state of perpetual rot. Until then, you’ll find many people “rotting in their rooms” and posting about it on the very apps that are the flies circulating the rotting carcasses.