Brain rot: Cognitive decomposition as a structural externality of attention assetization

Abstract

While brain rot has entered the popular lexicon as a marker of cultural-intellectual decline, this article theorizes it as a systemic condition of late-capitalist survival. Integrating world-systems analysis with the critique of the attention economy, I argue that cognition has emerged as the new frontier of intensive accumulation. As material expansion shifts toward cognitive extraction within the post-2008 conjuncture, platforms assetize attention to stabilize speculative valuation. This induces a biopolitical rewiring that functionally degrades the capacity for sustained thought. This systemic brain rot is analyzed through its class-stratified distribution and institutional collision within the university, where deep learning confronts the high-frequency logic of extraction. Ultimately, this mutagenic mode of accumulation consumes capitalism’s social and cognitive foundations, necessitating a shift from therapeutic self-management toward the political contestation of attentional regimes through structural alternatives like engagement metric caps and public digital infrastructures.