Washington Post Ranks FOMO and MEME Among College Words of the Year

Dan Reimold is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Tampa. He spends much of his time around young people and notices the way they speak. So much so, he recently wrote a blog for the Washington Post, in which he ranks the 2011-2012 College Words of the year.

Here’s what made the list:

1. Boomerangers: “Young 20-somethings who are spending their immediate college afterlife in hometown purgatory.”
2. Drunkorexia: “The affliction, which leaves students hungry and at times hung over, involves “starving all day to drink at night.”
3. FADerall: “The pill’s medical purpose is to help individuals with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and narcolepsy… Apparently, full-time students are twice as likely to illegally use Adderall as individuals their age who are not in school or only enrolled part-time”
4. FOMO: “This ever-present emotional-digital anxiety now has a defining acronym: FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. Recent Georgetown University graduate Kinne Chapin confirmed FOMO “is a widespread problem on college campuses.”
5. Gender-Neutral: At a rising number of colleges and universities — in middle America and along the coasts — students are protesting, passing resolutions and publishing commentaries in support of a single hyphenated buzzword: gender-neutral.
6. Helicopter Parents:
   So-called helicopter parents have hovered over higher education for years, but recently rose again to A-list prominence among the student and professional media and scholarly community for their continued extraordinary interference in their children’s lives.
7. Katniss: “With ‘The Hunger Games’ invading multiplexes this spring, many of the locations, characters, quotes and quirks unique to the world author Suzanne Collins created have suddenly loomed large within pop culture. The biggest, by far: Katniss.”
8. Kony: “It is a last name, a symbol of political activism and a cultural flashpoint. It is also the title of what may be the longest YouTube video students have ever watched and the most resonant recent movement at the student level beyond those involving tuition hikes.”
9. Meme: “This spring, college memes suddenly invaded the Facebook streams of students at schools throughout the U.S., Canada and parts of Europe.”
10. Pinning: “Among students and many others, the social media platform of the moment is Pinterest.”