Goblin mode beats Metaverse and is the word of the year for the Oxford dictionary

A sound defeat that Mark Zuckerberg will certainly not like the one collected by Metaverseunderstood as a lemma, in the challenge with the winner of the Oxford Word of the Year 2022 that is to say goblin mode. In the annual award to decree the word of the year according to the famous dictionary of the English language there was practically no challenge given that there was a real plebiscite. The neologism used to indicate “the pleasure of being scruffy, sloppy and unpresentable” got 93% of the votesleaving just 4% to the Metaverse and 3% to the bronze medal or Istandwith, or the union of I stand with which means “I stand with, I support”.

Free to disregard social norms and proud to take some time for themselves to spend at home: this is how we presented the goblin mode at the moment of maximum splendor of this lifestyle trend that abandons the rules imposed by society to return to basic instincts. A state of mind that is anything but comparable to simple laziness, as a real method to overcome problems and difficult periods in a more relaxed way. It was last spring, however the first appearances of the use of the Goblin mode are lost two decades ago, in 2009. For the record, the Goblin was chosen as a symbol, given that it well represents the disregard of one’s lack of aesthetics. Thanks also to the formidable propulsion obtained on social networks such as TikTok and Twitter, goblin mode won the Oxford Word of the Year 2022 award by a large margin that for the first time in history was opened to the vote of the web public, attracting as many as 300,000 participants.

Also at the word of the year awards event was Ben Zimmer, an American linguist and lexicographer, who said: “Goblin mode really speaks to the times and allo zeitgeist, and it’s certainly an expression of 2022. People are looking at social norms in new ways. It gives people license to abandon social norms and embrace new ones.” Nothing to do for Metaverse (and Meta), which could take this small satisfaction and enter the history of the English language succeeding other recent ones words awarded and become an integral part of the common lexicon as a selfie in 2013 or the climate emergency in 2019.