Word Salad

"Words of the Year" & The Healthcare CEO Assassin

Dearest Reader,

I hope you all had a wonderful Turkey Day with family for those in the United States and Happy Holiday season to all across the globe practicing different faiths or worldviews. I have relished the opportunity to unplug in recent days, before riding out the rest of the year, so I hope you didn’t miss me too much.

As a New Yorker, what is top of mind at the moment is the assassination of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, who was tragically gunned down in broad daylight in Manhattan last week. As someone who pays attention to the culture, I am sadly not surprised about the murder of a millionaire leading the most pernicious and largest health insurer in the country. United Healthcare provides benefits to over 50 million Americans as the largest, most profitable subsidiary of United Health Group. I’m not surprised because violence is embedded in the American cultural and political arena right now, given the fact that Donald Trump and his ilk glorify violence regularly (a hallmark of fascism by the way). Since August Trump has survived two homegrown assassination attempts and an alleged hit ordered by Iran. Also, as icing on the hostile cake, the U.S. is the most violent developed nation in the world. What is actually surprising, is the near universal indifference or even celebration of Thompson’s untimely death. Before this news broke, I was contemplating writing about language in our increasing dissociated and post-fact world. To that end, I will explore the 2024 “word of the year” in the UK, Australia and the United States and juxtapose that to this tragic CEO death— which involves some choice words, as well.

This year Oxford University Press of the United Kingdom, chose “brain rot” as their word of the year:

brain rot

(n.) Supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.

To contextualize this term in 2024, we can look to mainland Britain where white supremacist riots erupted across the country after a fatal knife attack by a 17-year-old English-born young man that took the life of three girls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class. He also injured eight more children and two adults. Despite the killer being a Brit (albeit with Rwandan immigrant parents) social media, namely on Elon Musk’s racist troll farm formally known as X, spread convenient lies about the identity of the killer. According to the BBC, “social media posts falsely speculated that the suspect was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK on a boat in 2023, with an incorrect name being widely circulated. There were also unfounded rumors that he was Muslim.”

Notorious UK white nationalist Tommy Robinson and Musk were major cheerleaders of false conspiracies which inspired rioting across the country for 1-2 weeks. Migrant, immigrants, people of color or anyone who codes non-white or against their “cause” was physically targeted. Though no one else died, it wasn’t for lack of trying. According to the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council, as of August 30th, over 1200 people were arrested and nearly 800 charged with crimes. People were pulled out of their cars, beaten on the street, and attacked at holy sites/residences across 27 towns and cities in the UK. Although, riots have emerged in the recent past due to anti-blackness/police brutality or new taxes or other flashpoints in society, but to my mind this was a violent eruption of a whole other sort. Perhaps nothing like this has been seen on this scale for a century, since the 1919 Race Riots.

Today, people of color in the UK, are living in a society with a seething white nationalist subculture that they now know is liable to lynch them in the street given the right incentives—truth and facts be damned. Surely, the murder of three innocent children is deplorable and the killer must be prosecuted, but the fact is that “brain rot” laid the groundwork for the riots. Mostly aggrieved men (and some women, of course) are pinning their troubles with cost of living, class inequality, climate change and underemployment not on the powerful, but squarely on the most vulnerable because conspiracies obstruct critical thinking. As Oxford University Press details “brain rot” was first coined in 1854 in American naturalist, essayist, poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden.

Between 2023 and 2024 “brain rot” saw a 230% increase in usage first online by Gen Z and Gen Alpha then increasingly referenced in journalism “amidst societal concerns about the negative impact of overconsuming online content,” according to Oxford University Press. For Thoreau “brain rot” referred to society’s devaluation of complex ideas which he understood as an emergent crisis. Thoreau is my type of guy; he wanted to harmonize with nature and to advocate for human dignity as a lifelong abolitionist who also coined the philosophy of “civil disobedience.” Thoreau defined “civil disobedience” as taking a principled, reasoned and non-violent approach to challenging authority. His writing went on to inspire the work of men like Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. I imagine Thoreau probably saw “civil disobedience” as an antidote to “brain rot” in our ability to shape society from the bottom up eschewing the passivity of “brain rot.”

Another “word of the year” came from Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary who identified the term “enshittification”:

enshittification

(n.) The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.

In 2022, author Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe how the internet was “colonized” by privately owned platforms where critical services precipitously degraded in quality affecting how we conduct business, stay connected in community and otherwise enrich our lives. In the wake of the global pandemic kicking off in early 2020, we all found ourselves increasingly reliant on the internet and social media to maintain our lives, careers and relationships. Remember? Everyone discovered Zoom for video conferencing. Popular terms like “doomscrolling,” “self-care” and “the great reset” captured the tension in the zeitgeist. Remember? If so, you may also recall that as our online usage increased, the quality of many platforms decreased.

Initially, between the early aughts and 2010s, social media posts, for example, could organically gain traction so long as it was resonant. However, as a hunger for profit and competition for attention grew, outrage and anger came to dominate the vocabulary of online communication because, statistically, strong negative emotions get the most attention. This cultivated a toxic corporate incentive to favor negativity in social media’s algorithm/coding. Therefore, apps increasingly depend on negativity to gain attention in a competitive media landscape, hence the “enshittification” of social media.

More specifically, the purchase of Twitter is a sterling example of “enshittification.” Currently owned by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, he lied about his ambitions, before technologically manipulating a once beloved liberal-leaning platform and rebranding it as X. X is now artificially juiced to boost Musk’s own posts, as well as, boost the commentary of right wing, extremists and those who love them. Musk also removed bans on attention seeking, negativity goblins like Trump, Islamophobic lunatic Laura Loomer, and British white nationalist Tommy Robinson. He recently announced plans of “amnesty” (interesting word choice…) for remaining outcasts of recent years like British blowhard Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Nixon fanboy and Trump crony Roger Stone, Adolf Eichmann wannabe Steve Bannon, neo-fascist group the Proud Boys and more swamp creatures. X has become so odious that millions of former users have migrated to the relatively new left-leaning app Bluesky as it nears 25 million users and a 519% uptick in American usage since the November election. If X is not a textbook example of “enshittification,” then I don’t know what is. In fact “enshittification” may well be the word of the decade—it was already the 2023 “word of the year” by the American Dialect Society, so let’s see what list it ends up on in 2025.

The final “word of the year” for 2024 that I’ll discuss, from the United States and dictionary.com, is “demure.” This word choice was inspired by a viral video from lifestyle and beauty influencer Jools Lebron:

demure

(adj.) characterized by shyness and modesty; reserved.

In August 2024, TikTok star Jools Lebron posted a video with the instant catchphrase “very demure, very mindful” providing tongue-in-cheek advice on professional and social etiquette. The word “demure” immediately entered the social media parlance and humor rolodex. As someone who meditates, I wish “mindful” would have caught on more and inspired greater mindfulness (a conscious practice to remain present and holistically aware that dovetails with meditation), but we already struggle with “brain rot” so here we are.

“Demure” is also an interesting word because of it’s sharp contrast as a feminine (internalized) energy compared to masculine (externalized) energy that is dominating society right now. I suppose we should be thankful for small favors, as some people seek to emulate Lebron’s measured temperament and be more “demure” in their interactions at a time when violent energy and war rages around us. According to dictionary.com, “between January and the end of August, this term saw a nearly 1200% increase in usage in digital web media alone.” I suppose like Michelle Obama’s 2016 advice “when they go low, we go high,” “very demure, very mindful” provides a rhetorical panacea from a bygone era of civility. The catchphrase emerged in a space of hopefulness in the US, before a disappointing election, when many people hoped for a more “demure” and “mindful” candidate to prevail. No such luck…at least not yet.

Returning to the events last week with the killing of Brian Thompson of United Healthcare; aside from the cold calculation of the murder, his killer left several provocative messages in word form. The suspected assassin was captured this week, but previous forensic analysis found that the shooter engraved each bullet casing that killed Thompson with a single word, specifically “deny,” “defend,” and “depose.” Those three words seem to be a tip-of-the-hat to the predatory playbook run by private insurance companies as elucidated in the 2010 book, Delay, Deny and Defend by Jay M. Feinman. Feinman’s book details how private healthcare companies strategically undermine legitimate claims in order to maximize profits. In fact, United Healthcare has the highest overall rate of claim denials in the country at 32% and currently under fire for using AI to deny claims, despite the technology having a 90% error rate. Crazy.

To the shock of some and dismay of others, social media has unleashed a torrent of sardonic humor or indifferent rhetoric towards the incident and sometimes outright admiration for the shooter. Last weekend his backpack was discovered in Central Park, filled with a few items including literal Monopoly board game money. United Healthcare is currently being investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for executive engagement in fraud and insider trading plus a probe into whether the company itself is monopolizing the industry. So I imagine, the monopoly money may be a less than subtle reference to the corporation

Family members and individuals personally harmed by United Healthcare and other private insurers are using healthcare related hashtags to share truly heartbreaking stories about medical debt, grave mistreatment and arguable corporate/medical malpractice that resulted in the death of loved ones. I watched a number of these appalling testimonials on TikTok and learned of one story from journalist Thom Hartmann about a cancer patient who served 13 months in prison for filing bankruptcy, out of desperation, too many times because their insurer would not pay for treatment. If they hadn’t, they would likely be dead. Madness.

To be clear, the murder of Brian Thompson is nothing to glorify and I hope for a just outcome for his family. However, I suspect this unusual incident may portend more violent responses to impunity by the rich and powerful. Based on my understanding, violence tends to beget more violence. When and in what form, I have no idea. Though on the flip side, I have never seen such cohesion against and deep reflection on predatory private healthcare companies in the United States. Words contain multitudes and I urge folks to pay close attention to the words that describe and dictate our lives because as much as we have serious issues to contend with, we cannot begin to solve them without clear communication and understanding of what we are up against.

Remember Thoreau.

With Love During End Times,

Agunda