'Doomscrolling' is word of the year for 2020 - Public Address

9:29 am on 21 December 2020

As it does every year, the Public Address website sought online votes from a long list of words, many of which came into existence, or rose to prominence in 2020.

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#NZhellhole tallied the third-most votes while the runner-up for the word of the year was: "Bubble".

Russell Brown from Public Address told Morning Report the votes we quite Twitter-influenced.

So what is doomscrolling?

"Basically, you're scrolling down to the see all the terrible things that are happening in the world," Brown said.

The name "Bloomfield" also made it to the list.

The Macquarie Dictionary in Australia had also chosen doomscrolling and Covidiot, he said, however, "its readers went for 'Karen'."

The top 10 words:

  • 1. Doomscrolling
  • 2. Bubble
  • 3. #NZHellhole
  • 4. Covid-19
  • 5. You're on mute
  • 6. Lockdown
  • 7. Covidiot
  • 8. Unprecedented
  • 9. Bloomfield
  • 10. Go hard, go early

In 2019, 'OK Boomer' - a phrase used by Millennials, which some of the older generation is offended by, took the top spot.

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