brainworm check

A prompt — usually directed at yourself or someone online — to pause and evaluate whether a belief, fixation, or recurring thought is actually reasonable or whether it's a brainworm doing the talking. Performing a brainworm check means stepping back from a spiraling idea and asking: is this a real, defensible position, or has the algorithm fed me this take so many times that I've absorbed it as truth? The term is part audit, part intervention, and part self-aware humor about the internet's ability to rewire everyone's thinking without their consent.