2024 word the year: enshitiffication. I nominate IndieWeb for 2025

2 December 2024

The neologism, devised by blogger and author Cory Doctorow, just over two years ago, has been named the 2024 word of the year by Australian English wordbook, Macquarie Dictionary.

This must be some sort of record, between the time a new word is coined, comes into popular usage, and then named as a dictionary’s word of the year. Enshitiffication was among sixteen other candidate new words (PDF) shortlisted by Macquarie, and also won as the People’s Choice word.

It seems apt enshitiffication is selected as word of the year, given the rise in prominence IndieWeb/SmallWeb has experienced during 2024. If there’s any sort of counterpoint to the declining integrity of many of the social media platforms, IndieWeb/SmallWeb is it.

Macquarie accepts suggestions for their word of the year, and this might be an opportunity to bring the community/movement/concept/notion, however you like to describe IndieWeb/SmallWeb, to the notice of more people.