The headspace you enter when an obsessive, irrational, or algorithmic idea has fully taken over your cognition and you're operating entirely from within its logic. Someone in brainworm mode is not reasoning — they're spiraling, citing their five most-watched creators as gospel, and arguing points they'd never have held two months ago. It's characterized by an inability to steelman the opposing view, a compulsion to keep engaging with content that feeds the fixation, and a defensive hostility toward anyone who tries to snap them out of it.
Please don't engage him today, he's in full brainworm mode and has been doomscrolling that subreddit since Tuesday.
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Viral internet speak — memes, ratios, main-character moments, and the algospeak of every platform from Twitter to Reddit to TikTok comment sections.
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