“Goblin Mode” Named Oxford Dictionary’s 2022 Word of the Year

From the same people that brought you Boaty McBoatface and Gushing Granny Mountain Dew, may I present to you:

Goblin mode.

Every year, Oxford Dictionary picks One Word to Rule Them All, generally something that encapsulates the spirit of the past 365 days. In 2013, for example, the word was “selfie”; 2021’s was “vax.” (In 2015 it was just the crying laughing emoji, which ??? Ok Oxford.)

But this year, they opened it up to viewers like you, and this is where that got us:

Goblin mode probably has the most ties to the gaming scene (case in point, my husband has been goblin moding the new World of Warcraft expansion during his time off from work), but its meaning has expanded to encompass the entire aesthetic of “f*ck it, who cares.” This growing attitude seems to have stemmed from pandemic fatigue– at the start, we all tried to make the best of it, but now we’re just bitter and disillusioned and #overit.

But goblin mode, by its nature, is not a permanent state of being. People who are habitually self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy are not in goblin mode, they’re just goblins. My husband is a normal (ish), pleasant, sane person. He also had two weeks off after a huge work project and spent some of that time indulging in a hobby. Goblin mode is for people who are usually fine and occasionally get, well, gobliny.

Other examples of “going goblin mode” are “when you wake up at 2am and shuffle into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long T-shirt to make a weird snack, like melted cheese on saltines,” “hoarding weird sh*t just in case you run out,” and this cat:

This is what you get when you open up voting to the general public. The people in charge always have a dream of the better nature of man ascending hand-in-hand to create something beautiful and apropos to this shared moment in history. The people who actually vote are unsanctimonious little trolls who will stop at nothing in pursuit of the LOLZ.

I, for one, think that’s beautiful.