Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I'm Yuhan Lin. Language is a living, breathing entity constantly evolving to keep up with our ever -changing lives.
That is why Roundtable's Each World of the Year special episode isn't just a linguistic trend.
It's more of a time capsule, revealing what mattered most to us as a society for the past year.
From the rise of AI to the embrace of bread culture, what do 2024's words tell us about where we've been and where we're headed?
For today's show, I'm joined by Yuhan and Steve Hatherly.
Now, grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
Some say language is humanity's oldest tool, then words of the year are its annual progress reports.
These are linguistic markers of how technology, culture, and emotions intersect in our modern world.
From sizzling slang to viral catch phrases, these words have been the life of the party, shaving our conversations and capturing the spirit of the times.
But where do these words come from?
Why did they shine so brightly this year?
Grab your coffee or tea, no judgement, and let's dive into a lively discussion that's part pop culture, part linguistic, and 100 % fun.
And by the way, let me know what is your word of the year, but we can discuss that at the end of this episode.
Start from the word of the year, 2004, actually when we do these kinds of episodes, because Roundtable has been doing these kinds of lists and words of the year for, I think, several years straight, and we always choose different lists and combine them and kind of form our words of the year.
Yeah, there's no definitive one word of the year.
You can go to many different media outlets and find their word of the year.
But it's fun, yeah, to do this, you know, as December comes to a close and as we get ready to welcome another year on the calendar.
Yeah, to have a look back and see what were the buzzwords from from the previous 12 months.
Definitely. And especially for this year, we are looking at Yao Wen Jiaozi, a language related magazine for the, let's say, foundation of it.
We'll talk about the words they provided and maybe add a little bit of our special selections.
So for this special list, what are some words that caught your attention?
You know, for me, the one word that I found very kind of absurdly interesting is the one that could be resonating with some of our foreign listeners as well.
It's called Siti Buxiti.
Like directly translated into English is called city or not city.
But here's a note here that has nothing to do with the famous Shakespearean quote, to be too totally different thing.
So city or not city is the phrase that kind of got popular after China started to implement the 144 hours visa free transit policy, which allows tourists from other countries, well, several other countries to come travel in China for about six days and without, you know, visa and everything that attracted
millions like tons and tons of foreign visitors.
Some of them got famous using this word city, city, city.
So they're trying to learn Chinese, but they do not have enough Chinese vocabulary.
So they're basically blending things together.
It ended up being a catchphrase.
I mean, what does it sound like to you, Steve?
There's someone who's just when I hear city Buxiti.
Well, I know Bux means not city, not city.
So when I hear it in English, I'm still confused about what it actually means.
Is this a city or is this not a city?
Are we talking about towns or I don't know.
I mean, it sounds like a questioning tone is more of a commenting tone that these foreign visitors being here in China for the first time touring around, they just find the local food and atmosphere and the landscaping very attractive.
So it's like I'm walking in the Chinese city.
It's not, you know, the big, vast farmland, as I imagine before coming here.
But it's very modern.
It's a cool city like in Chongqing and Shanghai.
So city Buxiti is it's kind of nice.
Like look around, it's nice, a city Buxiti.
It's like it's fashionable.
It's trendy. It's really good.
I don't know how to describe it.
So I'm creating a word to describe it.
And on Daoin, the Chinese version of TikTok, the hashtag related to city Buxiti have actually attracted over 10 billion views while videos related to China travel has exceeded one billion views.
It makes totally makes sense that this word has become one of the, you know, the word of the year, top 10 buzzwords of 2024.
It does make sense, actually.
And I think, you know, speaking as someone who only recently moved to China and moved to Beijing.
Yeah, before moving.
And I think this is a fair statement for, you know, traveling expats who have never been to China before.
The knowledge of Beijing or Shanghai or even, you know, some other tier one cities, big cities, very limited, I would say.
The only things we know about Chinese food are, you know, Westernized Chinese food that we get in our own countries.
But the real dishes, we don't really know anything about.
And then shortly after arriving here, I learned there are so many dishes in China that Chinese people will never eat all of them.
That's how many dishes there are.
Yes, I did not know that.
So for people who come here, everything is a wonderful learning experience and everything is kind of surprising.
And one of the things that hit me first when when I arrived was how green Beijing is.
There's trees literally everywhere.
I've talked about that on Roundtable before.
But even even saying this, you know, on the show today, if you're listening, you go, oh, really?
Yeah. But I still can't express how many trees there are in this city.
They're literally everywhere.
So I understand why foreign travelers coming here are like, oh, wow, this and oh, wow, that and oh, wow, this.
And it's it's and it's a cool thing for us to know.
Yes. And at the same time, I think it's a cool thing that city, this very I do not even know how to describe kind of word because the phrase is not Chinese.
It's not English. It's not entirely anything.
And as a interpreter, it bugs me when people use it because I don't know how to translate it.
And the thing is, it's got popularity, not only among overseas in Internet social media platforms, but Chinese social media platforms as well.
It shows that people actually enjoy this kind of expression, they enjoy being praised a little bit, questions a little bit and also asked about how the local is like, how local food is like, what are some places to go?
They enjoy these questions from foreign visitors quite a lot.
So, yeah, that's quite lovely.
And on top of these kind of words or expressions or something I do not know how to describe, we have some other ones that are related to the fast developing technology.
Yeah. One that really shocked me was called Xu Zhihua, which could be translated into digital and intelligent transformation.
You know, around a decade ago, we hear digitalization, something is digitalized all the time.
But nowadays, it's about it's all about the combination of advanced intelligent technologies with digital foundations.
And now digitalization becomes the foundation for something else to be cultivated, such as AI or the the generative large language models that's been used in almost every industries here in China as well, for example, the e -commerce industry and also logistics.
I had the honor of speaking to a logistics company leader from from I think it's DHL back when I was interviewing in Shanghai just earlier this year that he told me that there in their warehouses, a lot of the say the standing of parcels and the organizing and management of delivery information are all
computerized in a way that they have little cards following the say the mail deliverers in their warehouses to help them to facilitate their work, which is one way of really boost the productivity in their warehouse.
And that's a very tiny example of how digitalization combined with AI technologies has been making such advancements in our lives.
So I was reading a paper on Harvard Business Review, I think it was, and they were talking about how AI and technology and digitalization and becoming digitally intelligent is going to be part of the new year and the following years as well.
And they were talking about what it means to be digitally intelligent from a business point of view.
And they said that it doesn't mean that you have to know about how to use all the technology that's available to you.
But you do have to be curious, but being curious isn't just enough.
You have to be curious to the point of what's out there and how can we incorporate it into our business to make our business run more efficiently and smoothly and how can we use it in a way that the employees at the company feel confident and comfortable using that technology too.
And I thought that was so interesting because we've talked about it so many times on the show this year about how AI is incorporating itself into so many different business aspects of our lives.
And yet still, people are still figuring out, oh wait, well, this is available, but should we be using this or not?
We're still in the learning phase right now.
Yes, definitely. And this is happening in almost all the industries.
We talked about a certain factory, how to make sure the data of the factory, the goods, the actual production lines, the information about all those are computerized in the way that you have all the data and everything.
Yet, when it comes to being intelligent, actually artificial intelligence is helping the factory to figure out among all those orders they have accepted which ones should be produced first and at what point they should stop or pause and starting to basically start manufacturing the other for the other
order. So these are the intelligent parts.
Timing, yeah. Timing is very important and it's happening to all, maybe not all, but a lot of factories in all over China.
And at that moment we would ask ourselves, are the results provided by artificial intelligence always right?
Should we always listen to them?
And that is why we have another keyword of the year that is called zhünongxiangxian.
So it's like intelligence towards good.
Yeah, I mean, I'm really grateful that you mentioned that, Hongling, because I was thinking about this as well.
We talked about logistics industry or the e -commerce industry, how it's been benefited by the AI, say, the technology.
But in the meantime, this also emphasizes that such development of AI must contribute to the human welfare, the good side of our society, how it's going to benefit us and make goods.
That's what the term you mentioned earlier explains as well, zhünongxiangxian, the intelligence towards good.
And we all know that China is an AI superpower.
Some data that I collected from globalpolicywatch .com suggests that China's AI market is on track to exceed US $14 billion this year with ambitions to grow tenfold by 2030.
So with such a market, there's a lot of opportunities to discover.
But in the meantime, all reports and sources are also pointing out that the Chinese government had also released several policies to try to seek solutions to contain the societal and political risks of AI that we're all facing nowadays globally.
Like I said, learning how to use it to our advantage.
And it's really, really hard if you think about it, because we always say policies, guidelines.
Well, guidelines are a bit different because guidelines are supposed to help us understand how to develop, how to regulate.
But definitely rules and regulations, laws and articles, these things happen always a bit, a little bit later, a little bit delayed than the actual phenomenon, because you need to have enough examples for people to actually discuss what are the rules, what we should do to punish this wrongdoings and this wrong
behaviors, what we should do to encourage this rightful behaviors.
And it's always hard.
Yet nowadays, you see the really, really fast development of technology.
It's almost impossible.
It's almost not fast enough for us to figure out the regulations, figure out the rules, like what we used to do, like wait for enough examples, because waiting might be just too late.
That is why we now this year, I think personally, I have almost already attended one or two of these forums and symposiums talking about how to make AI use for good and how to figure out.
Well, I was not the main speaker or anything.
So no, wow, in neither there, but definitely there are so many of the talk trying to figure out how can we keep up in pace?
How can we be faster in doing these things?
So is definitely one thing.
And when we have on the list, I would like to mention another one, which is way like I kind of enjoyed that one to future industries.
So what does what do future industry mean?
I mean, some of these future industries we've already involved on Roundtable in previous sessions before as well, such as humanoid robots.
It's something that's already on the go.
It just has a few more steps to wait for it to get to the day to day lives of normal people.
But there are just a lot of forward looking emerging industries out there driven by cutting edge technologies as well.
And this is particularly characterized by their strategic significance, pioneering nature and disruptive potential.
So humanoid robots is something that's already happening.
And there are more such as the brain machine interface and reading it.
And I'm feeling a bit alienating about it.
Brain machine interface or brain computer interface.
That's something yet to happen.
But it's definitely futuristic industry or future industries that we're looking up to in the near future.
Manufacturing, future information, future materials, future energy, future space, future health care, you name it, just put future in front of it.
And companies are looking at cutting edge technology.
They're looking for their strategic significance.
I mean, I remember one episode of Roundtable we did about the supply chain expo.
I don't know if you were on.
I was on the show. You were here for that one.
And on the surface, we talked about it.
Oh, OK. Well, this sounds like what?
What is a supply chain expo?
But the more we learned about it, we learned that companies get together and starting from raw materials all the way to the delivery of the products to the stores where we as customers go and pick them up.
There's so much that happens in between.
So many things that we don't even think about.
Yet those companies are very interested in streamlining and doing their business as efficiently as possible, hence the expo.
But you know, talking about future manufacturing, that's what we're talking about there.
Yes. And on top of Wei Lai Chang, your future industries, I have to give you a little bit of context here that is both the English and Chinese.
The Chinese Wei Lai literally mean future and China literally is industry.
So you think it's about the kind of industries that are with futuristic element.
Yet there is actually a document, well, listing all of the so -called future industries and also some of the companies that are accepting the support from central government as well as local government and also what are the developing state of these specific industries in the local area and how are they
doing in terms of linking the upstream, let's say industrial links, as well as the downstream ones.
So it's actually more concrete and more solid than we imagine from the surface level.
It is actually happening and a lot of people are working on developing these future industries.
Yeah. And again, to reference that Harvard Business article that I was talking about before, they mentioned this as well, that for companies, it's a real challenge because we're in such a time of change right now with AI becoming what it is in business.
And they talked about the fact that you have to stay ahead of the curve.
You can't just ignore it.
You can't just say, oh, OK, I guess other companies are going to do this and we won't.
You can't. You'll fall behind.
So when they talked about being curious and knowing what's out there and what's best for you, that's exactly what they were talking about.
Yes. And beyond the Chinese linguistic banks that we've been discussing, I think there are several dictionaries in the West that's been inspiring, you know, their words of the year as well.
And one that I personally found very interesting.
Now we're outside of the AI topics and futuristic topics.
It's something that's really interested on social media these days.
It's called manifest.
And it's from the Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary Award of the Year 2024.
And the reason why I like it is because well, this year I've been trying to look into the you know, the mind growing and peaceful mind as well, say, on the personal growth wise.
And in the meantime, I discovered the word manifest at the end of twenty twenty three, I think, which makes sense that it's now popular in twenty four.
Takes time. You inspired the word of the year.
I wouldn't. You manifested it.
Explain what manifest is to start with because before the show, I didn't even know the word.
And now I totally want to do it after the word.
Oh, wow. After the show.
I mean, it's on global social media platforms, but also domestic Chinese ones as well.
Say on the red on so it's translated as so.
But the word manifest itself, according to Cambridge Dictionary, refers to use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.
So basically, you just sit there, picture something in your mind and repeat on this positive phrase that I'm going to make, say, I can manifest whatever I want to come true.
That's like a mind power.
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There you go. I manifested.
I think it's more than just believing it.
I think you have to take action.
That's true. This is true in in sports psychology a lot.
Back in my curling days, when we were getting ready for the national championships, we had a sports psychologist talk to us about the power of believing something and closing your eyes and visualization.
Visualization is a big thing in sports psychology.
You picture yourself performing well.
You picture yourself winning the championship.
Question. Do I have to picture myself doing things step by step?
Because, well, what I well, I did do a little research on manifest because I didn't know what it is.
But by preparing for the show, I think some people suggest that when you manifest, not only should you be manifesting yourself success, you should also be thinking about the actual steps that will lead you to the success.
That's why I said we are going to provide you a Chinese perspective on, you know, how to view the world.
And that's what we're doing.
I think in sports psychology, it absolutely is true where you're visualizing things step by step.
But you can try to manifest other things in your life, too.
You could manifest a new relationship if you're single and you're looking for love in 2025, then believing in it and willing it into existence.
That's what this is all about.
And I guess, you know, visualizing how to get a new partner in 2025 step by step, maybe that doesn't apply there in that context.
But at the same time, I think that I think the psychology behind manifestation is that if you believe something good will happen to you, then your behavior will go in that direction and your mindset will go in that direction instead of negatively thinking, oh, that's not possible.
I can't do this. I can't get that promotion at work.
I can't lose those five kilograms at the gym.
If you start with that mindset, you're going to have a more difficult time doing it.
Whereas if you truly in your heart believe that it's possible for you, then your behavior will start to go in that direction to help you achieve that goal.
Yeah, it's more about the power of believing, like Steve mentioned.
And what always comes with manifestation is the power of universe.
Like the universe is going to give this to me.
That's like another way of imagining that, yeah, that's the goal I'm heading.
And it's going to come to me.
It's like two directional things, not just me going over, but the universe is coming to me as well.
I don't know if that song I believe I can fly is popular in China or not, but I believe I can touch the sky.
Right. I think about it every night and day.
That song is about manifesting.
Yes. And at the same time, when you have the power of positive thinking, what, well, the worst scenario, the worst case scenario is try really, really hard and didn't get it.
And it's not, it's not that bad either.
So I think I kind of get manifest.
And in the world where everything's changing, by the way, change is also on the list of the Chinese Language Inventory 2024 jointly organized by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center.
And also on that list we have some of the words or some of the key concept we've already mentioned.
So changing in the society that changing is constantly happening, definitely finding the power to help you push through, help you think more positively and embrace what's happening to you is more important and is going to help you feel better.
And that is kind of, I think part of the reasons why a lot of people say that whatever happens, they happen for a reason and they happen for a good reason.
The universe is designing my path for me.
If I didn't achieve this specific goal I had, maybe it was because this goal was not meant for me.
Maybe the universe has something bigger planned for me.
And all I needed to do is to embrace that.
I think that's some positive power we can, well, we can have for the really close to close 2024.
By that logic, the word failure should never exist.
It should never exist.
We can definitely go continue, go on the list of the fun words of 2024 that are listed on all of these rankings, starting with my personal favorite that is, I really love that one because we talked about it on Roundtable and now I feel like I respect these kids quite so much.
But yeah, let's explain what that word means first.
I mean, for me, the English might sound a bit weird as it's directly translated into kid brother and kid sister.
But I guarantee you, it has no religion background.
It's not the brother and sister, the kind of thing.
But by referring to these younger kids as quote, unquote, brother and sister, we're actually trying to pay them respect.
As in Chinese, when we call brother or sister, older brother, older sister, elder brother, elder sister is a respectful term for someone slightly, usually slightly older physically or on par in age as you.
But in this case, we're trying to pay especially respect to these kids who are very talented and show skills or achievement at a very young age.
So, for example, here's this kid.
I've never heard of this kid before, but I'll call him so hard.
Good if I actually meet him, this 11 year old boy, Yan Hong Sen, who's nicknamed kid brother online by many netizens out there.
He's from Shaoxing in East China and he is a kid brother because he successfully built a rocket at the age of eight.
Seriously, eight. Yeah.
And not only built it, he launched it about a year later.
Right. I'm reading it and I feel like I'm not understanding what I'm reading.
So what am I doing at night?
But anyways, this kid, he he launched his second rocket.
The Sun Xing generation one.
He actually named it resolving the parachute deployment system issue that had previously been a challenge for him.
So obviously this kid is learning and being innovative about his rocket building career.
He passed a level four programming exam and the level two Python programming exam.
He has an incredible talent and passion, by the way, for aerospace.
Yeah, this isn't some little kid making, you know, rockets out of clay or something in the backyard.
No, this boy is building rockets and that's what kid brother means.
Yeah, the translation doesn't come out very clearly, I think.
But it's a it's a young person, 11 years old in this case, who has more intelligence probably than you do, more talent probably than you do.
But they're super young.
So you want to show them that respect.
So that's where this term comes from.
Yeah, I think this is not just in China as well.
Nowadays, a lot of younger kids or children or young teenagers, they appear to be talking in a more mature tone than a lot of adults in the society nowadays.
I was watching this video about maybe just a boy of 10 years old.
He's from the U .S., judging from the accent from the southern side of the U .S.
that he was standing on this big truck that's I don't know, like 100 times his size and explaining in very colloquial southern accent, English accent, to each part of that truck, how to fix each part of that truck.
Different different modal types.
And, you know, he's all got all that vibe.
But he is like 10, 20 years younger than someone who usually comes up with all that tons of knowledge.
I love this quite so much because when I was a kid, I hear about people saying, you know, we should teach a kid, depending on what kind of material, quote unquote, this kid is what he or she is really interested in.
What are the subjects that they're really good at?
What are the talent that they really possess?
But it's really hard because, again, China is a really populous country.
It's a vast country and we do not really have.
Well, I don't think any country in the world has the ability to give one kid one teacher so that they can access the ability of the kid very thoroughly.
Yet with social media, we're kind of seeing that is basically what's happening.
The kids figuring out what they're interested in, what their talent lies.
And when they put things in bigger perspective, allowing the entire Internet to be their judges, they realize, wow, I am not.
Just thinking I'm really good at it.
I am really good at it.
Or you could let the Olympics be your judge.
What was her name? Really, really good.
Right. The the 14 year old girl, her nickname was Kid Sister.
Oh, sweet and she right.
And she competed in the women's street skateboarding finals in Paris at the Olympics.
She finished fourth, which is an incredible accomplishment.
It was her debut at the Summer Olympics.
And she achieved the best ever result in the event for the Chinese delegation.
And she's 14 years old.
And that's a personal breakthrough for her, obviously, but a really historic milestone for Chinese skateboarding in the Olympics, too.
Again, Kid Sister. So my feeling is that in the future, we are going to see more and more Kid Sister and Kid Brother and seeing their pure talent.
And they will wow us all the time.
And I love it. Yeah, I think it was just on a side note, I think that was such a smart thing for the Olympics to do.
When we were covering it, we discussed the fact that the Olympics was trying to kind of get younger with its image and attract a new audience, a younger audience.
And I think having amazing athletes like that accomplishes that goal.
Yes. And on top of little kids inspiring us, we are also looking at another keyword that is silver haired power.
In Chinese, we call it yin fan li liang.
So the silver haired refers to definitely the senior citizens.
And they are making more and more contributions across the society and doing all kinds of voluntary work, attending into different types of activities and cultural education.
And we used to have silver haired economy, meaning that we're inventing things and working on different industries, serving the elder generation, making their lives better.
And apparently now not only are we doing that, they are doing things to, well, they have been working on contributing to the society for their entire life.
And now they're having a comeback, almost like a comeback, continue to work to make the world a better place.
I mean, yeah, a lot of these take Chinese silver hair generation.
I believe those are people above their 50s or 60s included.
They were exposed to the, say, the digital world, the globalized world about 10, 20 years ago.
And with all that experience and nowadays with all the technologies that's available, not only are the young people, the younger generation there, you know, exploring this whole new era, but also what we call the silver haired generation.
They're also exploring it in their ways and creating new trends, new waves, consumption waves and also the different opportunities that's created for them, like the new colleges for older generations as well.
Sure. I think many of my parents friends have much better photography skills than I do.
That's what I was going to mention before going back to school, taking classes.
Yeah, really nice to see and it totally makes sense.
Maybe it didn't exist before.
And this is true in the West, too, I think, you know, when you're when we think about our grandparents and the concept of them going back to school to take classes, to learn new hobbies or learn new things was kind of a foreign thing.
It just didn't really happen.
But now it's becoming more commonplace here in China.
That's that's really cool.
Yes. And also each and every year on the list of words of the year, we see a lot of twenty Internet slands and also some new catch phrases.
So what is your favorite one for this year?
It's got to be this word that some on the top.
And I'm so proud that they elected this one as one of the top ten is called some sugar and Chinese, which could be translated into a laid back vibe or the relaxed vibe chilled out.
Yeah, chilled out. Exactly.
This term can literally be used to any scenarios where you just feel relaxed, whether it's at home, you have that chill out mode with your wife and kids or your husband and kid or not at home.
That after this long day, you just feel chilled out and feel peaceful about, you know, letting go of the control and, you know, just doing things happily in peace with your family members.
Or it could be used in a workplace, say I have that chilled out mode that I don't really I can't handle pressure.
But in the meantime, I'm feeling peaceful while handling pressure.
It's like one again, let's get back to the Olympics.
One good example would be the Turkish shooter that I remember when it was viral fashion style.
Yeah, he was like dressing as if he's ready to go to the mall right after the the context.
Competition. Yeah, he was all chilled out.
He was just standing here, take a shot and he got the silver medal.
Yeah. I don't know.
I have I think I have a confession to make here.
I don't have the chill chill out laid back.
It's like she's telling us as if we don't know that.
I was about to say this right after.
And for me, I think the chill out vibe or mode for me is like I prepare so hard and I have all of the things I need to do in my heart.
I know I can do it.
And then I can have the chill out mode.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's easy to understand when people work as hard as you do, then it's hard to have that kind of chilled out vibe all day, every day.
But I think it's possible, you know, if we can kind of incorporate that attitude into our work lives, then maybe that would make, I'm not speaking about you, I'm speaking about everyone.
If we can incorporate that kind of relaxed vibe into our work attitude, it's still working hard, but just not as stressed about working hard.
Then maybe that might make things easier for all of us.
If I fake, would you buy both of you?
If you faked it, I'd like to see you try to fake it first.
I want to know what that looks like.
That can be my New Year's resolution.
How about you, Steve?
What was your favorite, like, catchphrase of the 2024?
It's from the Chinese list, actually.
Correct my pronunciation, please.
Banhui. Banhui. Banhui.
Your pronunciation is good.
This translates. Now, this is really fun.
This translates to English as work smell.
Now, if you're a native English speaker, you're saying, huh, what does that mean?
What's a work smell?
Well, this is a Chinese term that refers to someone who looks like they've been in the office for 16 hours a day for the past 16 years.
They've got those tired eyes.
They look a little haggard.
The appearance might be a little disheveled, if you will.
And it's been hot on Chinese social media.
People telling their stories about looking Banhui and how to reclaim their balance so that they don't look so Banhui.
Like, they've got that smell of work just exuding off of their poor, out of their pores.
Oh my. Why are you laughing so hard?
It's because, well, it's so vivid hearing you describing all that, translating all that into English.
But for us, the more common way of using this phrase is to banhui.
Yes, remove it. Especially for younger generations, we seek all kind of methods and solutions in order to get rid of that, like discussed on Roundtable for many times.
We go to Wild Eat. We go camping.
We go, I don't know, just bath house, getting a food pedicure and go study in a karaoke.
We do all kinds of things to get out of that working environment.
Just, you know, to have your whole individual get refreshed, not only physically on the appearance wise, but also mentally.
Yeah, so you can have that relaxed vibe that you were talking about before.
Yes. And my favorite one for the year was actually from the foreign list, from the English language list, it's it's brain rot.
Brain rot. Yeah, I love brain rot.
This was the Oxford word of the year for 2024.
What does brain rot mean?
Well, it means suppose the deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of over consumption of material now, particularly online content considered to be trivial or unchallenging.
And I love it so much because when I am actually at home and, you know, watching a little bit of short videos, when I say a little bit, I mean, three hours, maybe I feel like the content is poisoning my brain and lowering my intellectual level.
And I also see comments in the comments section saying, yes, I'm the second idiot watching the entirety of the video.
And then you followed by I'm the third, I'm the fourth.
So people sometimes I understand because after a very stressful day, what you really need is to consume a little bit, something that does not require you to think too much 100 percent.
I think that we as a global society have become obsessed with being productive at all waking hours.
And if we're doing something just for the sake of doing it, just for the sake of having fun or just for the sake of turning your brain off for a few minutes, we're somehow meant to feel guilty about that.
If we're not doing something to improve our intelligence or improve our diet or improve our physical capabilities, I think we need stuff like this.
I once watched a video about 15 times in a row of penguins walking downstairs.
And if you've never seen penguins walking downstairs, it might be the cutest thing you will ever see in your life.
It was at a zoo, I guess, I don't know, or some sort of penguin enclosure and the zoo keeper, the penguin trainer, whatever, was saying, come on, guys, come on.
And the little things were like hop, hop, hop down the stairs, looking up online.
Yeah, looking up online.
It's a great way to kill 15 minutes and give you some of that again.
The laid back vibe.
Yeah. All that being said, I still hope in the coming coming year I can do more active, like, quote unquote, useless wasting time kind of thing like paint a picture or learn a music instrument instead of wasting time instead of watching these videos that I am not proud of for two or three hours a day
and I am not judging anyone if that's your way of feeling relaxed, you can still do it.
But that being said, hopefully for the about to come year, we can all be a little more proud of ourselves.
We can manifest the things that we want to happen.
And one of the things I hope that can happen is for you to share your words of the year to us, to Roundtable.
Just, you know, you can leave a comment in the comment area or send us an email.
We'd love to see that.
