A year ago, experts at Oxford Dictionaries threw up their hands and declared wax the word of 2021.
But this year, the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary seem to be in goblin mode, just like us.
Goblin mode is a popular term used for behavior in which people unashamedly prioritize personal pleasure, laziness, greed, or recklessness in a way that is not accepted by social norms or expectations.
Oxford Dictionaries has named goblin mode as the word of 2022 and that too after public voting.
Oxford Dictionaries conducted a public vote on the words goblin mode, #IStandWith and metaverse.
Usually Oxford Dictionaries compiles a list of commonly used words and then selects one of them.
But this time the word of the year was chosen in a new way.
318,956 people voted for Goblin Mode and 93% of the total votes went to this word.
According to Kasper Grathhol, president of Oxford Languages, “Although our team expected the public to be happy with the process, the enthusiasm we saw was surprising.”
The term was first used on Twitter in 2009 but went viral on social media in February 2022 when a fake headline was tweeted.
Goblin mode is often used in Tik Tok along with hashtags with the main purpose of showing different sides of oneself.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, the use of goblin mode increased during the first six months of 2022 when Covid restrictions were eased in several countries.
According to the dictionary, people reject the idea of returning to normal life or rebel against the unsustainable lifestyle of social media.
