Youthquake

Submission 4,454

About

Youthquake is a word used to describe a significant cultural, political or social movement caused by young people. In 2017, the word was chosen as Oxford English Dictionary's "Word of the Year," commemorating the political influence of young people throughout the year.

Origin

The word was coined by Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland in the magazine's January 1965 edition. In the article entitled "Youthquake," which focused on the baby boomer generation's period of social growth and entrance into politics, she wrote, "The year’s in its youth, the youth in its year. … More dreamers. More doers. Here. Now. Youthquake 1965."^[1]

Spread

On December 15th, 2017, Oxford English Dictionary named "youthquake" their word of the year. The dictionary describes the word as representative of the awkeneing of political activism by millenials and generation z, who participated in various political and social movements throughout 2017. This include the surprising success of British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in England's snap election in 2017, as well as the French election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen that year.

The word was not met with positive reaction as some online took issue with the choice, especially in compared to the shortlist, which included Antifa and Milkshake Duck. On December 15th, Twitter ^[2] user @TheMichaelMoran tweeted, "'Youthquake' is the Oxford Dictionary word of the year. Kind of ironic, given that 2017 didn't belong to young people who care about the future. It was dominated by miserable old sods who want to plunge us back into their fantasy of what the past was like." The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 100 retweets and 270 likes in three days. Twitter^[3] user @alistaircoleman tweeted, "'Surely you've remembered the word 'youthquake'? It's such a common word,'" which received more than 370 retweets and 800 likes in three days.

Finally, Twitter^[4] user @pixelatedboat, who coined the term "Milkshake Duck," checked his username to "'Youthquake' isn't even a word" and tweeted, "The ACTUAL worst thing that happened today is Milkshake Duck got shortlisted for the Oxford Dictionaries word of the year but lost to 'youthquake.'" The tweet (shown below, right) received more than 240 retweets and 1,900 likes in four days.

Several news media outlets covered the word, including CNN,^[5] The Washington Post,^[6] USA Today^[7] and more. Urban Dictionary user Mohit Hira posted an entry defining the term dated March 09, 2011.^[10] On December 15th, Twitter^[8] published a Moments page on the word.