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Which terms best represent 2025? Every year, editors for publications ranging from the Oxford English Dictionary to the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English select a word of the year. Sometimes these terms are thematically related, particularly in the wake of world-altering events. Pandemic, lockdown, and coronavirus, for example, were among the words chosen in 2020. At other times, they are a potpourri of various cultural trends, as with 2022s goblin mode, permacrisis, and gaslighting. This years slate largely centers on digital life. But rather than reflecting the unbridled optimism about the internet of the early aughtswhen words like w00t, blog, tweet, and even face with tears of joy emoji () were chosenthis years selections reflect a growing unease over how the internet has become a hotbed of artifice, manipulation, and fake relationships. When seeing isnt believing A committee representing the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English settled on AI slop for their word of the year. Macquarie defines the term, which was popularized in 2024 by British programmer Simon Willison and tech journalist Casey Newton, as low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user. AI slop, which can range from a saccharine image of a young girl clinging to her little dog to career advice on LinkedIn, often goes viral, as gullible social media users share these computer-generated videos, text, and graphics with others. Images have been manipulated or altered since the dawn of photography. The technique was then improved, with an assist from AI, to create deepfakes, which allows existing images to be turned into video clips in surreal ways. Yes, you can now watch Hitler teaming up with Stalin to sing a 1970s hit by the Buggles. What makes AI slop different is that images or video can be created out of whole cloth by providing a chatbot with just a promptno matter how bizarre the request or ensuing output. Meet my new friend, ChatGPT The editors of the Cambridge Dictionary chose parasocial. They define this as involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series . . . or an artificial intelligence. These asymmetric relationships, according to the dictionarys chief editor, are the result of the publics fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles, and this interest continues to reach new heights. As an example, Cambridges announcement cited the engagement of singer Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce, which led to a spike in online searches for the meaning of the term. Many Swifties reacted with unbridled joy, as if their best friend or sibling had just decided to tie the knot. But the term isnt a new one: It was coined by sociologists in 1956 to describe the illusion of having a face-to-face relationship with a performer. However, parasocial relationships can take a bizarre or even ominous turn when the object of ones affections is a chatbot. People are developing true feelings for these AI systems, whether they see them as a trusted friend or even a romantic partner. Young people, in particular, are now turning to generative AI for therapy. Taking the bait The Oxford Dictionarys word of the year is rage bait, which the editors define as online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content. This is only the latest word for forms of emotional manipulation that have plagued the online world since the days of dial-up internet. Related terms include trolling, sealioning, and trashposting. Unlike a hot takea hasty opinion on a topic that may be poorly reasoned or articulatedrage baiting is intended to be inflammatory. And it can be seen as both a cause and a result of political polarization. People who post rage bait have been shown to lack empathy and to regard other peoples emotions as something to be exploited or even monetized. Rage baiters, in short, reflect the dark side of the attention economy. Meaningless meaning Perhaps the most contentious word choice in 2025 was 6-7, chosen by Dictionary.com. In this case, the controversy has to do with the actual meaning of this bit of Gen Alpha slang. The editors of the website describe it as being meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. Although its definition may be slippery, the term itself can be found in the lyrics of the rapper Skrilla, who released the single Doot Doot (6 7) in early 2025. It was popularized by 17-year-old basketball standout Taylen Kinney. For his part, Skrilla claimed that he never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to. 6-7 is sometimes accompanied by a gesture, as if one were comparing the weight of objects held in both hands. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently performed this hand motion during a school visit. The young students were delighted. Their teacher, however, informed Starmer that her charges werent allowed to use it at the school, which prompted a clumsy apology from the chastened prime minister. Throw your hands in the air? The common element that these words share may be an attitude best described as digital nihilism. As online misinformation, AI-generated text and images, fake news, and conspiracy theories abound, its increasingly difficult to know whom or what to believe or trust. Digital nihilism is, in essence, an acknowledgment of a lack of meaning and certainty in our online interactions. This years crop of words might best be summed up by a single emoji: the shrug (). Throwing ones hands up, in resignation or indifference, captures the anarchy that seems to characterize our digital lives. Roger J. Kreuz is an associate dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor at the University of Memphis. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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When people use hand gestures that visually represent what theyre saying, listeners see them as more clear, competent, and persuasive. Thats the key finding from my new research published in the Journal of Marketing Research, where I analyzed thousands of TED Talks and ran controlled experiments to examine how gestures shape communication. Talking with your hands Whether youre giving a presentation, pitching an idea or leading a meeting, you probably spend most of your prep time thinking about what youll say. But what about the ways youll move your hands? I grew up in Italy, where gesturing is practically a second language. Now that I live in the United States, Ive become acutely aware of how cultures differ in how, and how much, people move their hands when they talk. Still, across contexts and cultures, one thing is constant: People do talk with their hands. As someone who studies communication, Id noticed how some speakers seemed instantly clearer when they gestured. This made me wonder: Do gestures actually make communicators more effective? The short answer is yes, but only when the gestures visually represent the idea youre talking about. Researchers call these movements illustrators. For example: When talking about distance, you might spread your hands apart while saying something is farther away. When explaining how two concepts relate, you might bring your hands together while saying these ideas fit together. When describing how the market demand is going up and down, you could visually depict a wave shape with your hands. One video included in the study provides an example of a TED speaker onstage gesturing as he presents his talk. [Photo: YouTube/TED David Agus: A new strategy in the war against cancer] To study gestures at scale, my team and I analyzed 200,000 video segments from more than 2,000 TED Talks using AI tools that can detect and classify hand gestures frame by frame. We paired this with controlled experiments in which our study participants evaluated entrepreneurs pitching a product. The same pattern of results appeared in both settings. In the AI-analyzed TED Talk data, illustrative gestures predicted higher audience evaluations, reflected in more than 33 million online likes of the videos. And in our experiments, 1,600 participants rated speakers who used illustrative gestures as more clear, competent, and persuasive. How hands can help get your point across What I found is that these gestures give listeners a visual shortcut to your meaning. They make abstract ideas feel more concrete, helping listeners build a mental picture of what youre saying. This makes the message feel easier to processa phenomenon psychologists call processing fluency. And we found that when ideas feel easier to grasp, people tend to see the speaker as more competent and persuasive. But not all gestures help. Movements that dont match the messagelike random waving, fidgeting, or pointing to things in the spaceoffer no such benefit. In some cases, they can even distract. A practical takeaway: Focus on clarity over choreography. Think about where your hands naturally illustrate what youre sayingemphasizing size, direction, or emotionand let them move with purpose. Whats next Your hands arent just accessories to your words. They can be a powerful tool to make your ideas resonate. Im now investigating whether people can learn to gesture betteralmost like developing a nonverbal vocabulary. Early pilot tests are promising: Even a five-minute training session helps people become clearer and more effective through the use of appropriate hand gestures. While my research examined how individual gestures work together with spoken language, the next step is to understand what makes a communicator effective with their voice and, ultimately, across all the channels they use to communicatehow gestures combine with voice, facial expressions, and body movement. Im now exploring AI tools that track all these channels at once so I can identify the patterns, not just the isolated gestures, that make speakers more effective communicators. Giovanni Luca Cascio Rizzo is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Southern California. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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A meeting drags on. People are talking, but no one is saying the thing that needs to be said. Direction is unclear, the energy dips, and everyone is waiting for someone to speak with authority. When you finally do speak, the words come out softer than you intended: – Maybe we should consider . . . – I think it might be good if . . . – Sorry to interrupt, but . . . One of the biggest challenges leaders face isnt just what they decide, its how they communicate it. Clarity, confidence, and authority are what set the tone for the room. If you tend to soften your tone or worry about sounding pushy, being more direct can feel uncomfortable. I coach leaders through this all the time, and heres what they learn quickly: Directive leadership isnt about being harsh. Its about being clear. And clarity is what builds trust, drives ownership, and gets results without raising your voice. Your words signal your authority or they undermine it. From Apologetic to Authoritative One of my clients, a senior director at a biotech firm in South San Francisco, was brilliant, respected, and deeply collaborative. But she had one blind spot: Her communication was consistently too soft. Her requests sounded tentative, her decisions felt optional, and her team often left meetings unclear on priorities. She told me, I know what I want to say, but in the moment, I dont want to sound demanding. In one meeting, a project was slipping. She needed to make a call. Instead, she said, Maybe we could try moving the deadline? Im not sure, what do you think? The team debated for 15 minutes with no direction. We worked on one shift: aligning her language with the authority she already had. Not louder. Not more forceful. Just clearer. Two weeks later, when another deliverable slipped, she said, This is a priority. Were keeping the original deadline. I need everyone aligned. The room settled. People nodded. The project got back on track. Afterward she told me, It felt clear, decisive, and grounded. I felt in command rather than trying to keep the peace. This is what leadership is supposed to feel like. What the Best Leaders Do Differently Think about the leaders who command respect in your organization. Listen to how they speak. – They dont hedge. – They dont apologize for having an opinion. – They say what they mean. And heres the part many leaders get wrong: This isnt about personality. A significant number of the leaders I coach are introverts. Theyre thoughtful, measured, and often worried about coming across as too direct. But directive communication doesnt change who they are. It simply changes how clearly the room understands them. Ready-to-Use Leadership Language If being directive doesn’t come naturally, you need the actual words you can use in real situations. Set clear expectations I need you to . . . This is a priority. Please focus here first. This needs to be done by Friday. Let me know if theres a barrier. Give direction confidently Heres the plan were moving forward with. Ive decided well handle it this way. Im asking you to take the lead on this. Own your authority respectfully Im making this call. Let me be direct . . . Im accountable for this outcome, and I need your partnership. Hold people accountable This didnt meet our standard. Lets discuss how to improve. What we agreed on didnt happen. Lets get back on track. We missed the mark here. How do you plan to fix it? Notice what’s missing from all of these: apologies, hedging, and room for endless debate. The Leadership Mindset Shift These aren’t just communication techniques. They reflect a deeper shift in how you see your leadership role. Youre moving from: Seeking permission Providing direction Hoping for consensus Making decisions Avoiding discomfort Addressing issues directly Clarity gives your leadership weight. Your team doesnt need you to be louder. They need you to be clearer. They don’t need you to wait your turn. They need you to step forward when direction is required. Put It Into Practice Pick three phrases from the lists above that match what youre dealing with right now: an unclear deadline, a drifting project, or a team member who needs firmer expectations. Then choose one upcoming situation where you tend to get soft. Prepare your words in advance. Practice them out loud once or twice. Then use them in the moment. The shift is immediate. People stop debating. They start executing. And you feel the difference between managing the conversation and leading it. Because when you speak with clarity and authority, people dont just listen, they follow.
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