Tharoor tweets ‘doomscrolling’ as a sign of impending doom

Shashi Tharoor, the Congress leader notorious for introducing rarely-used English phrases into the Twitter vocabulary, offered his “word of the era” on Tuesday: doomscrolling.

The man of many words was also kind enough to explain the meaning.

The act of seeking out and reading bad news on a regular basis,” read the definition supplied by the Congress leader.

“Word of the Era!” exclaims the narrator. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, this phrase (together with ‘doomsurfing’) is becoming more popular. In addition to producing political despair, increased intake of mostly negative news could have psychological consequences…,” Tharoor shared a screenshot of the word ‘doomscrolling’ and its definition on Twitter.

Word of the Era!
Merriam Webster Dictionary says they are watching the increasing use of this term (along with “doomsurfing”). Increased consumption of predominantly negative news could have psychological ill effects, in addition to causing political depression…. pic.twitter.com/YoDJjtAuxe

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 31, 2022

This isn’t the first time the author-politician-wordsmith has sent Twitterati scrambling to check their dictionaries to see if such words exist.

Tharoor made a jab at the Ministry of Railways earlier this month with the difficult-to-pronounce quomodocunquize.

“To make money by any means necessary,” read the meaning he had placed.

“Obscure Words Deptt: Must the Indian Railways quomodocunquize?” tweeted Tharoor.

He used the hashtag ‘SeniorCitizensConcession’ to tag the Ministry of Railways. He used the phrase quockerwodger last month.

“A wooden quockerwodger was a form of puppet. “A quockerwodger in politics was a politician who acted on the orders of a powerful third party rather than properly representing their constituents,” he explained.