Glossary / Slang & Internet Culture
Goblin mode means embracing lazy, messy, self-indulgent behavior with zero shame — staying in bed, eating snacks at 2am, skipping the gym and the skincare. It is a rejection of the polished, productive online ideal. Oxford named it Word of the Year for 2022 and it remains a relatable mood.
Goblin mode names the swing away from aspirational "that girl" content toward radical comfort and antiproductivity. It is unbothered and a little gross on purpose: the whole point is doing the opposite of optimizing yourself.
As content it thrives because it is honest and relatable — an antidote to highlight-reel feeds. Creators frame "goblin mode" days as permission to rest, and the term works as a quick caption for any low-effort, high-comfort moment.
Used in the wild
Caption on a messy-room video: "rotting in goblin mode all weekend and I have never felt more myself."
It circulated for years online before going mainstream in 2022, when it spread widely and was chosen as Oxford's Word of the Year via public vote. It captured a post-pandemic mood of rejecting self-optimization.
It is mostly used affectionately and as self-care humor — permission to be messy and rest. It only reads as a problem if it describes genuinely avoiding responsibilities rather than just a lazy, indulgent day.
Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling is compulsively scrolling through negative news or content even though it makes you feel worse. Coined around 2018 and mainstreamed during 2020, it names the loop where anxiety drives consumption and consumption drives anxiety. It is now shorthand for any unhealthy, trance-like scrolling session.
Menty B
Menty b is cutesy shorthand for "mental breakdown," used to defuse stress with humor: "one more email and I'm having a full menty b." It belongs to the same playful-abbreviation family as "delulu" and "totes," and is almost always self-applied about everyday overwhelm rather than clinical crisis.
Lowkey
Lowkey means slightly, secretly, or without wanting to make it a big deal: "lowkey obsessed with this song" admits a quiet enthusiasm. Its opposite, "highkey," means openly and intensely. Both function as tone-softeners in captions and comments, hedging a confession or an unpopular opinion.
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