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Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
For an intellectually deficient movement, the manosphere has endowed us with an unusually useful vocabulary. Take “maxxing,” as popularized by looksmaxxing, an offshoot of the incel community’s obsession with physical attractiveness. This has brought us endless linguistic possibilities. Simply add the suffix to the word of your choice and you have a term that perfectly reflects a commitment to doing that thing to the fullest. Want to hermitmaxxing this winter? Or how about a little churchmaxxing?
Then there is moggingthe crowned new word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary. It comes from Amog, or “alpha male of the group,” an acronym used in bodybuilding forums in the 2010s and adopted by incels. Thanks to an inscrutable online metamorphosis, mogging has become a term used when one person or thing outdoes another – sometimes in terms of appearance, but also, for example, in terms of style, work or aura (in the Gen Z sense, of course).
The origins of the term are, of course, steeped in the misogyny and superficial thinking that defines much of the manosphere. This was highlighted by Clavicular, the 20-year-old US streamer known for his lookmaxxing advice, who last month pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including rape. In a viral incident earlier this year, “Clav” himself was “mogged” by a man who social media considered to have a larger physical build.
So why did Collins choose mogging as his word of the year? Certainly, the other title contenders were lame. Ghost work, hydration breaks, carsspreading and Bixie (a haircut longer than a Pixie but shorter than a bob) don’t do much to stir the collective imagination. According to Alex Beecroft, managing director of Collins, the mogging victory “shows how each generation leaves its mark on the language”.
Gen Z seems to have a knack for taking words with dark origins and bringing them into the memeified mainstream. There’s Clanker (a derogatory term used against droids in Star Wars which has become a rallying cry against all things artificial intelligence), Menty B (a nice designation for a nervous breakdown), and brain rot (a blithe acknowledgment that screen addiction is slowly but surely melting young minds).
Indeed, from the manosphere we already have the red pill (co-opted from The Matrix) and simp (a man who shows excessive and usually unreciprocated affection towards his romantic partner). But he apparently has more to offer. What about the white knight (a man who defends a woman online) or the soyboy (a man deemed weak and effeminate)? Or that most sexist of acronyms, Awalt (all women are like that).
At this point, it’s natural to long for the innocent millennial days of Yolo, bae, FTW (for the win), and girlboss. Banking on Gen Alpha to restore confidence in the English language is undoubtedly a lost cause: skibidi is already confusing enough. But fear not, we Gen Z have reach. For those looking for more positive slang, we’ve already brought you rizz, mange and much more.
Some of you will deplore the “degeneration” of our great language. Why aren’t today’s youth more like William Shakespeare, who gave us over 1,700 new words, including cold-blooded, dazzled, and dull. Or John Milton, who offered chaos, debauchery and chatter? I must point out to you that resistance is futile. (See the Académie française’s failed attempt to prevent the spread of Anglicisms for more information.)
Furthermore, bringing the vocabulary of the manosphere into the mainstream mitigates a very harmful ideology. And we don’t know how long these unpublished words will be kept. “Maxxing” is so widely used that some already consider it “cringe.” Mogging could also be mogged.
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