“What many of us feel": Macquarie Dictionary recognizes ‘enshittification’ as the word of the year

The word "enshittification", which describes the process of deterioration of the quality of a service or product, was recognized by the Australian Macquarie Dictionary as the word of the year, UNN reports with reference to The Guardian.

Details

In 2022, Canadian-British blogger Corey Doctorow coined the word "enshittification" to describe the process of deterioration of a service or product due to excessive commercialization or abuse. The word was recognized as the word of the year by the Macquarie Dictionary this year. 

Social media users, even if they don't know the word, will deeply understand the concept, how trolls, extremists, fools and empty people have taken over social media.

To explain this term, we can take Instagram, for example, which once was mostly about cute videos of dogs and cats. And now it has turned into a platform full of salespeople, jocks, and insta-hotties. 

Or think of Twitter, which was once a useful microblogging site that has now been turned into a post-truth platform.

The Dictionary Committee described the word "enshittification" as "a very simple Anglo-Saxon term wrapped in affixes that make it almost official, almost respectable.

"This word reflects what many of us feel is happening to the world and to many aspects of our lives," the committee said.

The author is optimistic about how this can all end.

Actions on competition to prevent market dominance, regulation of things like digital privacy, more power for users to decide how they use platforms, and a crackdown on worker exploitation can reverse the process, he wrote, because "everyone has a stake in desensitization.

Recall 

The Cambridge Dictionary has chosen "manifesto" as the word of the year 2024.