By now, you’ll know Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year. In case you don’t, let me give you a hint. We live in a world of pop-up ads, booking fees, chatbot helplines, unsubscribe labyrinths, sponsored search hits, dark webs and data trading. Care to guess?

The honeymoon thrill of Facebook (now Meta) has gone. Ditto the retro-chic of Instagram, the purer TikTok scrolling, the zest of Twitter (now X). Come 2024, our online fun has turned fungible. Corruptible. Profitable.

Over two hours, the panel – myself included – whittled a 65-word longlist down to one worthy winner.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

To quote Canadian writer Cory Doctorow: “We’re all living through a great enshittening in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralising. It’s even terrifying.”

How many hints do you need? This year, an emblem of our era, Macquarie’s word of 2024 is Doctorow’s 2022 coinage:........

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