While every lexicographer coins their own word of the year, I put it to you that this year’s quintessential word is a legitimate entry in the hallowed bible of mental health. First a call to authority, then the word itself.
Described as “the most comprehensive, current and critical resource for clinical practice available to today’s mental health clinicians and researchers” by Psychiatry Online, the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, text revision (DSM-5-TR) is the benchmark used by medical professionals to determine someone’s state of mental health.
But what if that someone was the planet (or the global economy, or the planet’s zeitgeist), which is feeling — in the legitimate words of the DSM-5-TR — that things are a “mindf**k”. The word is now literally in the mental health bible, describing the state of the world now.
How else do you describe what US President Donald Trump has done to so many hallowed US institutions in his destructive second term? Or let his Nazi-saluting megalomaniac “former First Lady” Elon Musk wreak havoc with great organisations such as USAID. Let’s not forget how many millions of children are likely to die due to the shuttering of USAID and the destruction of aid to the rest of the world.
People will die, mostly children and women, because two misguided, megalomaniac morons destroyed what had been built over centuries through their disinformation campaigns. They ended up believing their own conspiracy theories, including about Jeffrey Epstein. Now Trump claims the sex offender nonsense he rode to his election on is a “Democrat hoax”. I kid you not.
But don’t let Trump’s “flood the airwaves” distract you from the fact that two of the world’s richest men are taking food stamps, aid and hope away from the world’s poorest children and the most vulnerable in America who rely on food stamps to eat. What a “mindf**k”.
In South Africa the word is no less apt. If the Madlanga commission and parliamentary ad hoc committee have shown us anything, it is the utterly unsuitable and disastrously poor quality of police leadership. No wonder crime is out of control.
The upper management levels of the SA Police Service are seemingly filled with the most moronic and incompetent candidates, intent on their own career advancement and fighting factional internal power battles.
It’s been a great time to be “Cat” Matlala and the like. It’s a wonder he’s actually behind bars. His most pertinent crime appears to be not being an ANC politician — or he’d be immune.
Such brazenness is typical of Gwede Mantashe (when confronted with his Bosasa security cameras or any rational argument that burning coal causes pollution) or Paul Mashatile (surely the most unsuitable public representative since Msholozi).
To hear the questions asked by parliamentarians is embarrassing enough, but to hear the weak-minded answers from senior policemen is heartbreaking. South African political parties don’t always send their best and brightest to the highest office, it seems.
The only way to fix parliament is to return to direct representation. Every MP stands in their respective area, and if they’re voted in, they can serve. If they don’t do their job, they can be voted out. The National Party insisted on the current proportional representative model that makes elected officials beholden to their party, more so than to the actual voters. That should change.
Meanwhile, Joburg residents are getting over the G20 traffic and coping with the now ignored potholes. On Jan Smuts Avenue, just down from the two-lane hole in the road, sewage is flowing down the road, a dirty flood dotted with clumps of white toilet paper. That’s just outside Joburg’s latest destination attraction, Nine Yards, which is due to open this month. The developers must be thrilled.
AI slop
Other notable words of the year are “rage bait” by the Oxford Dictionary, “AI slop” by the Macquarie Dictionary, “parasocial” by the Cambridge Dictionary, and “6/7” by Dictionary.com.
They’re pretty self-explanatory, except for “parasocial”, which is the upgrade for “stalker”, but instead of a dangerous one-sided relationship with a celebrity (and now also with an AI chatbot for weirdness), it’s more benign. For the celebrity, not so much the person in a loveless, one-sided relationship. But at least we now have a (new) name for it.
If you don’t have teenagers in your life, you may be bemused at the “6/7” meme, but it is just an upgrade of “either/or” for the TikTok era. You get the ris? “AI slop” is a phrase we will unfortunately hear a lot of — especially if you care about quality journalism.
There are also unofficial phrases and words like “vibe coding” and “clanker” — the former is using AI to help coding, and the latter is the derogatory Star Wars word for the evil droid troopers the Jedis fought in the Clone Wars. Now you know.
Yet nothing beats “mindf**k” as a description of 2025. This is especially true as we are treated to the unedifying spectacle of the death throes of the ANC, its continued obliviousness and the continued presidential inaction as it continues to ravage South Africa with its all-consuming corruption.
Just one more election until it is voted into oblivion? One can only hope. Read it and weep. What a mindf**k.
• Shapshak is editor-in-chief of Stuff.co.za.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.