Nicky Marr: Goblin mode is great but name’s a bit naff
It’s that time of the year where, in between fretting about energy bills, the cost of Christmas, and summoning the strength to write Christmas cards, we find out 2022’s official Words of the Year.
According to Oxford Languages, and 93 per cent of the 340,000 English speakers who voted in their poll, the word on our collective lips, and that best sums up the past 12 months, is [drumroll, please] ‘Goblin mode’.
Say, what? For a start, ‘Goblin mode’ is two words, so (pedantically) I’d argue that it doesn’t qualify as a word at all. And second, I categorically deny that those two words have ever passed my lips. Am I really that out of touch?
Turning to that font of all knowledge, the internet, ‘Goblin mode’ is a slang term referring to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”
So… real life, then? The stuff we all do in between spurts of productivity? Like watching Netflix with a laptop-sized bar of Dairy Milk, or soaking for longer in the bath than is necessary to get clean, or enjoying an afternoon nap if we think we can get away with it? Yes. All of the above.
Apparently, ‘Goblin mode’ describes an antidote to social norms. It’s a rejection, if you like, of the ‘look at me, isn’t my world perfect’ version of life that so many of us like to portray on social media. Of course, the term ‘Goblin mode’ itself comes from social media – specifically from TikTok. And that might explain why I hadn’t heard of it.
Reader, I love the sentiment, but not the phrase. Those of us who were raised on Enid Blyton were brainwashed to think of goblins negatively – those creatures were forever causing hassle for Noddy and Big Ears. But if we can re-package the term, perhaps as ‘self-care’, or rework the definition as ‘unapologetically self-indulgent’, then I’m all in.
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I shared a post on social media this week which sums up my life, particularly at this time of year.
It read, “Shoutout to everyone who has exactly two modes: 1) Doing all the things; 2) Doing absolutely nothing while recovering from doing all the things.”
And from the reaction it got, I guess it resonated. We’re not here to spend all our time achieving. We’re here to have fun.
From working, getting through house-hold chores, trying to keep fit, planning and preparing for Christmas, spending time with friends and family, catching up with life-admin, and keeping up with daily Wordle, Heardle, and Duolingo (I’m on a 681-day streak, French and German) I am officially claiming the rest of my life as my own.
If I choose to wheel out the vinyl and spend a nostalgic solo evening in front of the fire with a dram, it’s my life, my choice.
Be gone, any notions of Goblins or guilt, laziness, slovenliness, or greed. Time spent in indulgent pleasure is time well spent.
