Spending the day (or weekend) in bed watching Christmas TV movies, one eye on the TV, the other on your phone screen.
There is an air of deja vu.
Add to this a rampant consumption of four-cheese pizzas, stained pajamas that have not been washed for several weeks, a musty smell… In short, add a questionable lifestyle and social isolation, and you get goblin mode, or “goblin mode”. » in OV.
This popular attitude on TikTok and Twitter has just been voted "word of the year 2022" at the beginning of December by the very serious Oxford English Dictionary, whose mission is to "reflect the ethics, mood or concerns" of the months previous ones.
And judging by the definition established by the dictionary, there is reason to wonder about the period that has just passed.
The goblin mode indeed refers to "a type of behavior that makes no apologies for being self-indulgent, lazy, sloppy, or gluttonous, usually in a way that rejects social norms or expectations."
So, call for help or (very) passive act of rebellion?
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Celebrate ugliness
The precise origins of "goblin mode" remain obscure.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the story begins on Twitter in 2009. One user says her friend was “in hyperactive goblin mode last night,” as if “she ate an entire bag of sweets and then go down with a few Red Bulls.”
It will then be necessary to wait until February 2022 for the term to go viral thanks to satirical fake news.
The latter was referencing rapper Kanye West and claiming that he and his then-girlfriend, actress Julia Fox, broke up because he didn't like it when she "goblin-styled."
According to the CNRS psychologist and psychoanalyst, Natacha Vellut, this expression has gained in popularity because it refers to the codes of a pop culture familiar to generations Y and Z, namely that of the universe of JRR Tolkien and the saga Harry Potter.
"With the figure of the goblin, we leave the beautiful to tend towards the ugly, the small, the wicked, with the idea of valuing all bodies and at the same time, of accepting to bring down the promotional, even social facade, that we wear in spite of ourselves every day", notes the specialist.
With the figure of the goblin, we leave the beautiful to tend towards the ugly, the small, the wicked
Natacha Vellut, CNRS psychologist and psychoanalyst
On Twitter or on TikTok, where the hashtag #goblinmode now has 20.8 million views, there are indeed videos of goblins claimed to be dancing in an uninhibited way, others documenting their astronomical consumption of junk food, their attire working from home or simply their Sunday lethargy.
“Goblin mode reached, I have successfully merged with my bed and we are now one entity,” a netizen proudly declares.
Rejection of political correctness
Other followers of the goblin mode go so far as to claim a form of opposition to the smooth aesthetics of personal development lesson-givers and other healthy routines of social networks.
“I will never wake up at 5 a.m. to drink green juices and be hyperorganized.
Instead, I plan to hang out on Reddit until 4 a.m., drink Diet Coke from the early hours of the day, and put on handfuls of raw pasta as a snack, ”comments a user on TikTok.
By stupefying himself with television band-aids, for example, the goblin lives a form of anxious hedonism, seeks sensation rather than emotion.
Samuel Dock, psychoanalyst
Behind the dirty pajamas and the packets of crisps, there is also a general fed up.
“Socialization requires a tiring requirement.
At school and at work, you have to be the best, or at least popular.
We come close to burnout in some aspects.
To present oneself as a goblin aims in a certain way to denounce these injunctions and to stand up against political correctness”, summarizes Natacha Vellut.
The sign of a collective malaise?
For Samuel Dock, doctor in psychopathology and clinical psychologist (1), this total letting go is not a rebellion and would be more the sign of a collective malaise.
At a time when nearly one in three French people say they are affected by a lack of motivation, as evidenced by a recent Ifop poll, the specialist notes "a society where we have lost the sense of effort", with a lower appetite for cooking, individuals favoring home delivery and streaming rather than cinema.
And the pandemic has only accentuated this phenomenon.
“With the Covid-19 crisis and its successive confinements, we found ourselves faced with existential fatigue: there was no future, no otherness, nothing made sense anymore, indicates Samuel Dock.
To stifle this vertigo, we went in search of immediate pleasures until we suffocated, denatured ourselves and finally made ourselves ugly like a goblin.
More than a "goblin mode", the psychologist sees in this behavior a headlong rush, even the signs of a "micro-depression".
“By stupefying himself with television band-aids, for example, the goblin lives a form of anxious hedonism, seeks sensation rather than emotion,” he observes.
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How to get rid of it?
Anesthetize between four walls with images, far from others... This mode of operation is reminiscent of that of hikikomoris, a syndrome of extreme isolation of Japanese origin.
CNRS psychologist and psychoanalyst Natacha Vellut, who has studied the subject (2), sweeps away this argument.
“Unlike the hikikomoris, the goblins go out to work and continue in their free time to create links through the videos, the photos that they share on social networks.
From this point of view, it does not seem worrying to me, quite the contrary, the more there is communication, the more we will come out of this state of lethargy, ”she reassures.
To accompany this return to real life, psychologist Samuel Dock recommends goblins who have stayed too long in their cave to put down the remote control to question themselves on their desires, to reflect on what they want to do with their lives.
And if, despite everything, you find your jogging, chips and Netflix the following weekend, benevolence is in order, recalls Natacha Vellut.
"If we show self-mockery, as is customary on TikTok, it's even better, argues the psychologist, because it's a weapon, an outlet that helps to better support life"... And the musty smell?
(1) Samuel Dock is notably the author of
Le Nouveau Malaise dans la civilisation
, Ed.
Plunge, €19.90.
(2) Natacha Vellut is the co-author of
Hikikomori: an experience of confinement
, Ed.
Ehesp press, €25.