"Brain Rot" and "Bed Rotting", What Do They Mean?

The Oxford University Press’s word of 2024 was "brain rot." The year also gave us a flurry of TikToks documenting "bed rotting." What's with all this rotting — and is it a trend we should be taking into 2025?

"'Brain rotting' typically refers to the idea of engaging in mindless content consumption, like scrolling social media or binge-watching TV shows, which over time, feels like numbing or dulling your brain," explains mental health therapist Brittany Cilento Kopycienski, who owns Glow Counseling Solutions. "'Bed rotting’ involves spending excessive time lying in bed, contributing to physical and mental stagnation."

Both activities, it seems, are about checking out of whatever your reality is at the moment — and checking into the often good feeling of doing nothing. Is that good for our mental health? Here's what experts say.

"Let’s face it—bed rotting or brain rotting is not a style of lazy living. It’s about escape," psychologist Caitlin Slavens tells Yahoo Life. "The world is noisy, chaotic and often overwhelming. 'Rotting' is like pressing a giant snooze button on life. When you’re inundated with expectations (of work, family or even yourself), shutting down might seem your only option."

She adds, "These trends are a response to a world that’s made us feel like we must be performing in every moment of our lives — for work, for social media, for each other’s expectations. The rise of rotting says we’re burnt out, together."

That may be especially true for younger adults. "Our brains are experiencing unprecedented levels of stimulation through constant notifications, social media and digital engagement," Sophia Spencer, a social psychology and mental health therapist, tells Yahoo Life. "For Gen Z and millennials in particular, they are the first generations to live like this from a young age and for this to be their norm. Essentially, their brains are subject to a level of information that was once unthinkable, and not what our brains are designed for."

But others argue that this urge to disassociate from life isn't new, but rather something past generations have also felt as they settle into adulthood.

"Do you remember the 'adulting' movement?" Slavens points out.

"People began to celebrate even the most basic life tasks, like doing laundry or paying bills, as if they were a win in a world so large it felt overwhelming. Or hygge — the Scandinavian midcentury concept of warm living — where we all collectively agreed that it was candles and blankets we needed to feel better when burned out. "All of these trends speak to the same need: to ease up, to take a breath, to feel fine about not doing it all."

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Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey Labelled With Trigger Warnings?

Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey were labelled with trigger warnings by a university for "distressing" content and criticisms are mounting.

The University of Exeter has come under fire after telling undergraduates they may "encounter views and content that they may find uncomfortable" in their Greek mythology studies.

In what has been branded as a "parody" and "bonkers", students enroled on the "Women in Homer" module are told material could be "challenging".

With references to sexual violence, rape and infant mortality, undergraduates are also advised they should "feel free to deal with it in ways that help (eg to leave the classroom, contact Wellbeing, and of course talk to the lecturer)" if content is "causing distress".

However, the advice, which was obtained by the Mail on Sunday via Freedom of Information laws, has been ridiculed by both classics-loving Boris Johnson and experts alike.

The Iliad depicts the final weeks of the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by Greek city-states, while The Odyssey describes Odysseus’s successful journey back to Ithaca, set over multiple locations, timelines and alternative homelands.

Johnson, who read classics at the University of Oxford and is a fan of Homer, said the ancient works provided the "foundation of Western literature".

Reacting to news of the university’s warning, the former prime minister described the policy as "bonkers", telling the paper: "Exeter University should withdraw its absurd warnings. Are they really saying that their students are so wet, so feeble-minded and so generally namby-pamby that they can’t enjoy Homer?

"Is the faculty of Exeter University really saying that its students are the most quivering and pathetic in the entire 28 centuries of Homeric studies?"

Historian Lord Andrew Roberts said students shouldn’t be "wrapped in cotton wool and essentially warned against ancient but central texts of the Western canon".

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added: "A university that decides to put a trigger warning on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey has become morally disoriented to the point that it has lost the plot."

The warnings on Homer’s work come amid an increasing number of works being slapped with trigger warnings.

Last week, it emerged that John Steinbeck’s "Of Mice and Men" was removed from the Welsh GCSE curriculum for the "psychological and emotional" harm caused by its racial slurs.

In October, the University of Nottingham received similar criticism for warning students of "The Canterbury Tales" and its "expressions of Christian faith".

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Magnus Carlsen Quits After Dress Code Violation

The World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen quit the World Rapid Chess Championship last 27 December after he refused to change out of the jeans he was wearing.

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) also added that, Carlsen, who has won five world rapid and seven world blitz titles in the last 10 years, withdrew from the World Blitz Championship which follows the tournament.

FIDE said in a statement that Carlsen breached the tournament’s dress code by wearing jeans, then declined to change his clothes after the Chief Arbiter requested him to and issued a fine of US$ 200.

As a result, Carlsen would not have been paired for round nine, though he could have returned for the rest of the tournament had he not decided to walk away, per Chess.com.

Since he had performed poorly in the earlier rounds, there was little chance that Carlsen could have defended his title regardless.

"This decision was made impartially and applies equally to all players," FIDE said, adding that fellow competitor Ian Nepominatchi also breached the dress code by wearing sports shoes but continued to play once he had changed.

The standoff became "a matter of principle" for Carlsen, he told chess channel Take Take Take. "I haven’t appealed, honestly I’m too old at this point to care too much, if this is what they want to do … nobody wants to back down, if this is where we are, that’s fine by me," he said. "I’ll probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer than here and that’s it."

He explained that he had been at a lunch meeting before heading to the tournament’s second day and "barely had time to go the room, change, put on a shirt, jacket and honestly I didn’t even think about the jeans.

"I got here and I don’t know if it was after the first game or the second game … I got a fine, which is fine, and then I got a warning that I would not be paired if I didn’t go change my clothes," he said.

"They said I could do it after the third round today. I said I'll change tomorrow, if that's ok, I didn't even realise today. But they said you have to change now." Relations between Carlsen, chess’ most famous player, and FIDE, the sport’s governing body, have been growing more strained recently.

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Inappropriate Apps For Children In App Store

There is a new report published by the child safety groups Heat Initiative and ParentsTogether Action that described in detail the alarming presence of inappropriate apps that are rated as suitable for children as young as four years old on Apple’s App Store.

According to Endgadget, the groups worked with a researcher to review as many apps as possible in the span of 24 hours, and say they ultimately identified over 200 apps that contained "concerning content or features" given the ages they were rated for — including stranger chat and AI girlfriend apps, gaming apps with sexual or violent prompts and imagery, and AI-powered appearance rating apps.

The research focused on apps with assigned age ratings of 4+, 9+ and 12+ in categories considered to be "risky": chat (including AI and stranger chat apps), beauty, diet and weight loss, unfiltered internet access (apps for accessing schools’ banned sites) and gaming.

Among the findings, the report says at least 24 sexual games and 9 stranger chat apps were marked as appropriate for kids in these age groups. The research also identified 40 apps for unfiltered internet access and 75 apps relating to beauty, body image and weight loss carrying these age ratings, along with 28 shooter and crime games.

Collectively, the roughly 200 offending apps spotted during the 24-hour investigation have been downloaded over 550 million times, according to Heat Initiative.

About 800 apps were reviewed in all, and the research found that some categories were more likely than others to carry apps with inappropriately low age ratings. For stranger chat apps and games, "fewer were rated as appropriate for children," the report says.

In most cases, they were 17+. But in the categories of weight loss and unfiltered internet access, "nearly all apps reviewed were approved for kids 4+." The report calls on Apple to do better when it comes to child safety measures on the App Store, urging the company to use third-party reviewers to verify apps’ age ratings before they become available to download, and to make its age rating process transparent to consumers.

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"Skibidi Toilet" Continues To Get Popularity Boosts

"Skibidi Toilet" is already an internet sensation and now its about to get even more exposure.

The YouTube series, created by animator Alexey Gerasimov, is an unusual worldwide hit with more than 17 billion views. It features human-headed toilets engaged in a war with humanoids in a cinema style known as machinima.

"Skibidi Toilet" is also controversial because some parents have worried its potty humor wrapped in elements of horror and violence aren’t appropriate for kids who have become diehard fans of the viral series. (Think an older “Baby Shark” crossed with dystopia and a dash of Stephen King.)

But that’s not preventing "Skibidi" from being developed for TV and film treatment by director Michael Bay and former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman, according to a report by Variety.

"We are absolutely in talks right now, both on the television side and the earliest conversations right now on the film side," Goodman told the publication. "But it’s not a be-all, end-all for us."

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Soccer Top Players Not A Fan Of FIFA's Grueling Schedule

Rodri is the 2024 Ballon d’Or recipient for best male player of the year. He is also the the most outspoken critics against the increasingly congested soccer calendar.

The Manchester City and Spain midfielder issued a warning that the lack of downtime was detrimental to players’ performance and health. Then, just a month before the 28 October award ceremony, he tore his ACL during a seemingly routine run in a Premier League game against Arsenal.

Though such injuries have occurred throughout the history of the sport and aren’t necessarily linked to overplaying, Rodri’s season-ending injury became a visual representation of the physical toll of modern soccer at a time when the busy match schedule is facing legal challenges and the possibility of strike action.

Top footballers are now routinely playing more than 60 games per season for club and country, while the game is getting faster and more intense. Injuries are on the rise. Already pushed to their limits, some players say FIFA’s newly expanded Club World Cup, to be held in the United States next year, is the last straw.

Players say they are "at breaking point, that they are at the limit, that it’s actually too much," Alexander Bielefeld, from global players' union FIFPRO, told The Associated Press.

The new Club World Cup is a supersized version of what used to be a short tournament with only seven teams. The new edition includes 32 teams from around the world and will be held every four years, starting next summer in the United States from 14 June 14 to 13 July. As its name suggests, it’s envisioned to be club version of the World Cup for national teams.

That means top players will have a monthlong tournament on top of their domestic league season three out of every four years. With more games also added to the Champions League in Europe this season as well as the next World Cup in 2026, the soccer calendar is filling up quickly.

"It’s something that worries us because we are the guys who suffer," Rodri said in September, just days before he was injured. He said players may have no choice but to refuse to play if the trend continues.

He’s not the only one feeling frustrated.

In a post on X last year, Raphael Varane, a member of France's World Cup winning squad in 2018, said the schedule was putting players’ physical and mental well-being at risk.

"Why are our opinions not being heard?" asked the 31-year-old Varane, who retired from the national team two years ago and from playing altogether in September this year following an injury.

In July, England and Real Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham described the schedule as "crazy."

"It’s difficult on the body — mentally and physically you are exhausted," he said after England was runner-up at the European Championship.

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Pres. Biden Scrapped Pending Regulations On Student Debt

U.S. President Joe Biden has abandoned his previous efforts to seek some protections for transgender student athletes and cancel student loans for more than 38 million Americans. This was allegedly the first steps in an administration-wide plan to jettison pending regulations to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from retooling them to achieve his own aims.

The White House expects to pull back unfinished rules across several agencies if there isn’t enough time to finalize them before Trump takes office. If the proposed regulations were left in their current state, the next administration would be able to rewrite them and advance its agenda more quickly.

Even as the Biden administration moves to pull back the rules, it pushed ahead with cancellation through other avenues last 20 December. The Education Department said it was clearing loans for another 55,000 borrowers who reached eligibility through a program known as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was created by Congress in 2007 and expanded by the Biden administration.

As the pending Biden regulations are withdrawn, nothing prevents Trump from pursuing his own regulations on the same issues when he returns to the White House, but he would have to start from scratch in a process that can take months or even years.

"This isn’t the way I wanted it to end," said Melissa Byrne, an activist who has pushed for student debt cancellation. "Unfortunately, this is the most prudent action to take right now."

She blamed Republicans for putting the Biden administration in this position. "It’s a bummer that we have a GOP that is committed to keeping working-class Americans in debt," Byrne said.

The withdrawals are beginning as Washington braces for a potential government shutdown that could further complicate efforts by the Biden administration to tie up loose ends.

In documents withdrawing the student loan proposals, the Education Department insisted it has the authority to cancel the debt but sought to focus on other priorities in the administration’s final weeks. It said the administration would focus on helping borrowers get back on track with payments following the coronavirus pandemic, when payments were paused.

"The department at this time intends to commit its limited operational resources to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully," the agency wrote.

For the regulation on transgender students, the department said it was withdrawing the proposal because of ongoing litigation over how Title IX, the landmark law preventing sex discrimination, should handle issues of gender identity. In addition, the department said there were 150,000 public comments with a range of feedback, including suggestions for modifications that needed to be considered.

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Female Suffered Brain Bleed After Trans Hit Her With Volleyball

A bilogical female volleyball player claimed that she suffered a traumatic brain injury and lost her peripheral vision after being knocked unconscious by a transgender opponent.

Payton McNabb, now 19, was allegedly left with life-threatening injuries after a transgender player on the opposing team smashed a volleyball into her head, causing her to black out for 30 seconds.

The incident occurred in 2022 in a match for Hiwassee Dam High School in Murphy, North Carolina.

McNabb has now spoken out about the episode in a new documentary as she campaigns to prevent biological males from participating in women’s sports.

"If my story can, in any way help prevent this from happening to at least just one woman or girl, then it was all worth it," she told The New York Post.

After McNabb was struck on the forehead, she was rushed off the court with a concussion, neck injury and two black eyes while everyone else continued to finish the game, she said.

The teen said the full extent of her injuries only became clear weeks later, when she was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, a brain bleed, partial paralysis and loss of peripheral vision on her right side.

She also allegedly suffered ongoing memory loss, confusion and severe headaches.

McNabb said the incident was completely avoidable and claimed her teammates were aware of a transgender player on the opposing team before the game, but were afraid to raise their concerns.

"We never thought we would ever be put in this position to begin with," she told the NY Post, adding that her teammates didn’t know what to do.

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The Attractiveness Of A Thigh Gap

Why are men attracted to a woman’s thigh gap?

Here are the three main reasons:

1. Traditionally, a woman’s thigh gap has only ever been shown to a man behind closed doors.
2. It shows that she is a female because there are no hanging balls.
3. It looks good when coupled with another one of her feminine features; her hips.

Traditionally, a woman’s thigh gap has only ever been shown to a man behind closed doors

Traditionally, women haven’t shown that area of themselves before. It has always been covered up by a big dress in most cultures around the world. If you look at 1500s fashion, you’ll see that it’s covered up. If you look to the 1600s, you’ll see that it’s covered up, the 1700s, it’s still covered up the, 1800s, etc.

Women haven’t been showing that area of themselves and it’s only an area that a man usually gets to see when the woman is naked in his bedroom.

It shows that she is a female because there are no hanging balls

The male and female body is actually very similar apart from obvious feminine features from the woman and obvious masculine features from a man.

For a woman, some obvious feminine features are her hips, her breasts and if she has a thigh gap, her thigh gap. A subtle feminine feature can also be her face if she has a very feminine looking face. To be clear, the attractiveness of a woman’s thigh gap has more to do with what is going on above her knees.

It doesn’t matter if her knees touch or even if her thighs are slightly touching because the most attractive feature of a thigh gap is the pussy gap. What attracts men to a woman’s thigh gap the most is that flat line in between her legs or the subtle mound.

It looks good when coupled with another one of her feminine features; her hips

The angle of a woman’s hips is an obvious feminine feature which automatically attracts men in a subtle way.

If she also has a thigh gap that showcases the fact that she doesn’t have balls and a dick in between her legs, it’s a double attraction hit.

To be clear here, there are also men out there who prefer a woman without a thigh gap.

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