From TikTok to Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts and even LinkedIn (the land of earnest humblebrags), short-form video content has swallowed the internet whole. Everywhere you scroll, someone is pointing, dancing, lip-syncing, or telling you “five things you’re doing wrong with your life” in 23 seconds or less. Even Substack, the sanctuary for long-winded thinkers, is now dabbling in moving pictures designed to hijack your eyeballs.

And now, shocker of shockers, the studies are rolling in like, “Hey folks, turns out watching 417 micro-videos a day might gently sauté your frontal lobe.” Focus? Down. Self-control? Pfft. Memory? What memory?

Is brain rot real? Judging by the fact that “brain rot” was one of last year’s so-called Words of the Year, the zeitgeist certainly thinks so. (Never mind that it was two words as apparently language itself has given up.)

I mean, maybe there’s a reason we picked a term that sounds like something you’d diagnose after spending too long microwaving marshmallow Peeps.

Because now brain rot has seeped in. Deeply. Quietly. Sneakily.


Our neurons might already be misfiring from the constant barrage of jump cuts, algorithmic breadcrumbs, and chaotic dopamine confetti explosions masquerading as “content.” You watch one 8-second clip of a raccoon eating grapes and suddenly it’s three hours later and you’re learning about 18th-century chimney sweeps from a guy with too much eyeliner.

The moral of the story?

Stop watching short-form videos. STAT!

Pull the plug. Save your synapses. Reclaim your attention span before you start narrating your life in cap-cut templates.

Thankfully, I never caught on to TikTok. I’m not a Reel scroller.
I’m barely a Shorts dabbler.

So, maybe my brain will be saved.
Maybe I’ll be the lone survivor wandering the wasteland with my intact prefrontal cortex while everyone else tries to remember where they put their keys, their phones, and their will to live.

Or maybe I’ll join them eventually.
After all, even LinkedIn is making videos now.