TikTok

● Aliven.✎ 3

Charlie's Inferno

The most-listened track by the Brooklyn band That Handsome Devil, from their 2011 album The Heart Goes to Heaven, The Head Goes to Hell, which Wikipedia lists as an internet meme introduced in 2026 through a viral audio revival. The record holds the song and the year and does not invent the trend.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Hawak Mo ang Beat

A song by OPM Music Studio, first released in 2025, which became hugely popular across social media in the Philippines in 2026, driving dance challenges and memes. The French DJ Mogo, Sylvain Hernandez, claimed to have produced it and released his own version in 2026, and the song became the subject of debate over the use of AI. The record's entry for a hit with two claimed authors and one disputed method.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Just the Way You Are (Mall Grab Remix)

The resurgence in 2026 of Milky's 2002 song Just the Way You Are, driven by a remix from the Australian DJ Mall Grab that went viral on TikTok and by its use as the fan chant for Manchester City striker Antoine Semenyo. Pnau and David Guetta also remixed it that year. The record's entry for a 2002 song that had its best year in 2026.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Alivephr.✎ 3

Married Next Year

A 2026 meme listed by Wikipedia among internet memes of the year, which redirects to the Rod Wave track from his 2022 album Beautiful Mind. The record treats it as a TikTok audio revival of a four-year-old song and holds nothing about the trend beyond that.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Aliven.✎ 3

Misery (Pupsies)

A song by the American singer Pupsies, stylised as misery. with a full stop, released on 18 March 2026 and viral on TikTok in the months following. The record's entry for a song whose title came with its own punctuation.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Red v Blue School Wars

A 2026 viral phenomenon centred on London in which TikTok and Snapchat posts promoted fights between pupils from different schools, labelled red or blue after a wider red versus blue comparison trend. Copycat posts followed in Bristol, Cardiff and the West Midlands. The record files it as a safety matter rather than a format.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Aliven.✎ 4

Sharmaine, Vanessa and Melanie

Three fictional characters from a 2026 viral meme that began in comedic TikTok skits by the Filipino creator Baet: Sharmaine, an orange; Vanessa, a fly; and Melanie, an avocado, all of whom were dissatisfied with their names. The record's entry for a fruit, an insect and a fruit with a grievance.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Alivephr.✎ 3

She Gon Call Me Baby Boo

A lyric from What You Is by YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Mellow Rackz, released 9 September 2025, which Wikipedia lists among internet memes introduced in 2026. The record treats it as a viral lyric and audio of that year and does not invent the details of the trend.

▸ 2026peak 2026still up

● Alivev.✎ 1

Aura Farming

Doing something cool for no reason other than to be seen doing it. The eleven-year-old on the boat was made a tourism ambassador, which is aura farming by a government.

▸ 2025peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 1

Clanker

A slur for a robot, borrowed from a cartoon and aimed at delivery bots and chatbots. The first insult of the AI era, and notably a joke about needing one.

▸ 2025peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Gen Z Stare

A blank look in reply to a question, attributed to an entire generation. A summer of columns from managers and a summer of replies saying the question was stupid.

▸ 2025peak 2025†2025

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Italian Brainrot

A shark in trainers, a coffee cup ballerina, a crocodile bomber, narrated in fake Italian. The first meme family entirely generated by machines and named by children, and it ran a full year on that alone.

▸ 2025peak 2025†2026

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Performative Male

A man with a tote bag, a matcha and a feminist paperback held cover-out. Contests to find the most performative were held in a dozen cities, which is where a joke goes to become a fête.

▸ 2025peak 2025†2026

◐ Dyinginterj.✎ 3

Six-Seven

Two numbers said with a hand gesture, meaning nothing. Every classroom on Earth had banned it by October 2025; the dictionary announcement in December was the coroner arriving.

▸ 2025peak 2025still up

● Aliven.✎ 1

Aura

Charisma measured in points, gained and lost in public. Minus 1,000 aura for explaining it, which this entry has just done.

▸ 2024peak 2024still up

● Aliveadj.

Chopped

Unattractive, said briskly. Replaced ugly in the vocabulary of everyone under twenty, and is already appearing in the mouths of everyone over it.

▸ 2024peak 2025still up

◐ Dyingn.✎ 4

Dubai Chocolate

Pistachio cream and shredded pastry in a bar, filmed being snapped. Turned a supermarket ingredient into a global shortage, and is now available at petrol stations, which is the terminal stage.

▸ 2024peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Fridgescaping

Arranging the inside of your refrigerator like a shop window — flowers in vases, fruit in glass bowls, a framed picture beside the milk — which spread in August 2024 and was over by autumn, largely because food-safety experts turned up in the comments. The record's entry for the shortest-lived interior design movement on record.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2024

☠ Deadphr.

Just Put the Fries in the Bag

An instruction to stop talking and do your job, delivered to anyone who had shared too much. Harsh, useful, and worn out within the year.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2025

☠ Deadn.

Man in Finance

Looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes, sung a cappella and remixed by David Guetta within a month. Went from joke to record contract to over in one summer.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Man vs Bear

Would you rather meet a man or a bear in the woods. A month of women answering bear and a further month of men explaining why that was unfair.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Mob Wife

Fur, leopard print, big hair, contempt. A January aesthetic that the fashion pages had killed by February by taking it seriously.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2024

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Morning Shed

Peeling off the night's layers on camera — mouth tape, chin strap, under-eye patches, heatless curlers, a silk bonnet — under the rule 'the uglier you go to bed, the prettier you wake up'. A late-2024 TikTok routine that turned sleep into a preparation sequence. The record's entry for the beauty routine that happens while you are unconscious.

▸ 2024peak 2024still up

☠ Deadphr.✎ 6

Very Demure

Very mindful, very cutesy. Two weeks of joy, a trademark dispute, and White House use, in that order, over a single August.

▸ 2024peak 2024†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

AI Yearbook

The 1990s American high-school yearbook portrait — feathered hair, varsity jacket, cloudy studio backdrop — generated from selfies by the EPIK app and posted by seemingly everyone in late September 2023. The record's entry for the week the entire internet graduated from the same school in 1997.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Bed Rotting

Staying in bed all day, rebranded as wellness. Named by TikTok, diagnosed by the newspapers, and gone before anyone had to defend it.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Beige Flag

A partner's trait that is neither good nor bad, just odd. Two weeks of charming specifics, then a year of people describing normal behaviour.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Bold Glamour

The TikTok filter of February 2023 that reshaped the jaw, cheeks and eyes so convincingly that it survived a hand passing over the face — no glitch, no seam — and set off a fortnight of alarm about what beauty filters had become. The record's entry for the effect that finally looked like nothing was there.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

● Aliven.✎ 1

Brainrot

Content optimised past the point of meaning, and the mental state of having consumed it. The first internet term that is also a self-diagnosis.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

☠ Deadphr.✎ 3

Can I Pet That Dawg

A small boy's urgent question, 'Can I pet that dawg?', from a clip that spread across TikTok in early 2023 and became the sound for wanting anything very much — a dog, a dinner, a person. The record's entry for the year's most sincere request, asked by someone who had clearly asked before.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

● Alivev.

Clip Farming

Streaming only to produce moments that will travel. The point at which the live stream became a raw material and the clip became the product.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

● Alivev.

Crash Out

To lose composure entirely, often on purpose, often on camera. The verb of 2025, and unlikely to run out of applications.

▸ 2023peak 2025still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Cupid (Twin Version)

The sped-up, mostly English 'Twin Version' of K-pop rookies FIFTY FIFTY's 'Cupid', released February 2023, whose light finger-and-shoulder dance carried a debut group to the Billboard Hot 100 in weeks. The record's entry for the sound that made a girl group global and then, by year's end, made the girl group three-quarters gone.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Deinfluencing

A January 2023 wave of creators telling followers what not to buy — the viral blush, the water bottle, the leggings — that presented itself as a rebellion against overconsumption and became, within weeks, a way of recommending the cheaper alternative. The record's entry for the anti-trend that had a discount code.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 1

Girl Dinner

A plate of unrelated snacks eaten standing up, briefly elevated to a cuisine. Killed by fast-food chains putting it on a menu.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.

Girl Math

Reasoning that anything bought in cash was free. Written up as a financial-literacy crisis by people who had missed that it was a joke about being one.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 4

Grimace Shake

A purple milkshake, filmed as the last thing drunk before a fake horror scene. The brand pretended not to notice for three weeks; the trend ended when it did.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

● Aliven.✎ 2

Little Treat

The small purchased reward — an iced coffee, a pastry, a candle — framed as therapy and posted as content. 'Little treat culture' was named on TikTok in 2023 and became the standard justification for everything under nine dollars. The record's entry for consumption reduced to a manageable, adorable size.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

● Alivev.✎ 5

Looksmaxxing

Optimising your face by any available method. The vocabulary of a very unhappy forum, worn casually by teenagers who do not know where it came from.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Makeba

French singer Jain's 2015 tribute to Miriam Makeba, which TikTok rediscovered around February 2023 as a sound for travel montages, transitions and 'oohee' dances, sending it up charts it had never touched the first time. The record's entry for an eight-year-old song having a better year than most new ones.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

◐ Dyingv.✎ 2

Mewing

Pressing your tongue to the roof of your mouth to improve your jawline, and the gesture for it. Now mostly a way to tell a teacher you will not be answering.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

● Alivev.✎ 1

Mog

To be so much better-looking than someone that they visibly lose. Applied to people, cars, sandwiches and buildings, in that order of frequency.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

NPC Streaming

Streamers reacting to paid gifts with the same phrase every time, like a video-game character. Ice cream so good; the grimmest labour story of its year, dressed as a joke.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Rat Girl Summer

Scurrying about the city eating snacks and not overthinking it. One good video, one summer, and one Guardian explainer that killed it by August.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

☠ Deadn.✎ 2

Roman Empire

The discovery that men think about ancient Rome a great deal. A month of good jokes followed by four months of explanatory columns from historians.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2024

☠ Deadn.

Stanley Cup

A forty-ounce tumbler with a handle, fought over in car parks. The last product that people queued for because of a colourway, until the next one.

▸ 2023peak 2024†2024

☠ Deadn.✎ 3

Wes Anderson Trend

Filming your commute, your flat or your cat in pastel symmetry, with a title card and Alexandre Desplat's 'Obituary', in the manner of a Wes Anderson film — begun by Ava Williams on a train in April 2023 and copied by millions within the month. The record's entry for the trend that made everyone briefly notice their own centred composition.

▸ 2023peak 2023†2023

◐ Dyingn.✎ 2

Wonyoungism

A self-improvement aesthetic named after IVE's Jang Wonyoung, in which the goal is to be as polished, disciplined and graceful as a K-pop idol: early rising, pink, posture, and a study schedule. Spread on TikTok in 2023. The record's entry for the first productivity system built around one specific twenty-year-old.

▸ 2023peak 2024still up