If you still haven’t understood the elephant in the room, then you are not part of the internet's biggest inside joke - Brainrot memes. When was the last time you heard Pink Lips by Kanika Kapoor or Jee Karda from the popular Bollywood movie Singh is Kinng?
It is now close to impossible to recognise these two songs without their well known meme archetypes. The criteria for a content creator’s five-minutes-of-fame just got updated : you are not it if your reels don’t have an element of relatable humour and a sprinkle of every trending audio.
Here’s the catch, you still have to be original.
What is ‘brain-rot’?
There was a time when intelligence and originality went hand in hand because our attention span was used to hour long TV shows and maybe a detour to Nat Geo. But welcome to 2025, intellectualism has been dethroned by the reigning monarch of brainrot media.
Merriam Webster explains the term ‘brain rot’ in a better way, “material of low or addictive quality, typically in online media, that preoccupies someone to the point it is said to affect mental functioning. Both the state of preoccupation and resulting mental degradation are known as brain rot.”
Simply put, an average meme nowadays is so hard to put down because they have become absurd but indulgent and these factors have made them increasingly viral. A chaotic, dopamine-drenched scroll can make our frontal lobe feel like a digital cotton candy because every cut and every zoom in is carefully curated. Brain rot isn’t typically clean or purely aesthetic. This content form relies heavily on irony and overstimulation.
The Monetisation Game
Trends over social media are temporary but a powerful expression of what the public seeks. It is a deep reflection of the content that allows the larger strata to escape from stressful situations. Hence, calling satirical reels as another GenZ quirk isn’t right. Brands are no longer solely depending on clever billboard marketing or once-in-a-lifetime memorable campaigns. They have begun to monetise on this front as well. Let’s talk Zomato. A brand that has moved from foodie photos to Tiktok-style ads. Zomato’s meme-worthy, reel-ready ads make you want to revisit them.
Myntra is the best example of a brand that doesn’t major in magazine-catalogue looks anymore- until and unless they are all over Pinterest. Their campaigns are now for the Pinterest loving audience. By choosing Instagram-native faces the brand has monetised on chaos while advertising fashion for a generation which was raised on meme culture.
These ad campaigns work because the people working behind the scenes know what ‘delulu is solulu’ means. Zomato’s iconic push notifications are powered by meme-savvy writers who speak GenZ’s language without shame.
Where’s the creativity?
The brainrot economy may be becoming profitable because we’re trying to drown out boredom, anxiety and the least favourite, fatigue after an hour long doomscrolling. Content has transformed from entertainment to coping. This has raised the tension between attention and intention. Intentional storytelling is only impactful when it is raw, fragmented and surreal. Ultimately, brainrot is creativity in its most unexpected and unfiltered form. While the content may look ridiculous, it’s radically honest about the world we live in.
Jump cuts and absurd zooms become oddly beautiful when they are hyperreactive. This is because online creators have engineered overstimulation and packaged it in the way we consume our world.
Brainrot is the new black and overstimulation is only a strategy. The side effect of an entire generation’s endless scrolling has brought about the creation of a new aesthetic. Beneath the attention or aesthetics, it is about adaptation. It may not last forever but right now it is the moment.
We all have a guilty pleasure after all. So plug in and embrace the absurdity.