Why is the internet 'crashing out?'

Everyone online is "crashing out" all of a sudden.

Well, not literally — though, plenty of people actually are crashing out. But, for one reason or another, the term "crash out" or "crashing out" is everywhere this week.

For the unfamiliar, crashing out boils down to losing it. As Urban Dictionary puts it, to crash out is to "get really mad or upset; lose all your self-control." It can also mean that you're almost willingly entering a situation — or acting a certain way — that will prove harmful in the long term.

If you've been online lately, you've likely seen people talking about crashing out. Go on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, and you'll see recent, super-viral posts using the term crash out.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Go on TikTok and it's even more prominent. Every fifth post, it seems people are talking about crashing out in one form or another.

There are viral crash out posts about heartbreak.

Or for teaching negative people in your life a lesson.

Or teachers not knowing why their kids are saying it.

To be clear: This is not some new phrase.Younger folks, especially, have been using the term for quite some time. But, at least to my eye, it's ramped up in the past few weeks.

Why might that be? Well, for one, there's quite a lot to crash out about these days. While young voters did swing toward President-elect Donald Trump in 2024, the majority of voters under 30 still voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. Those young Harris voters, women especially, might be feeling like it's a time for crashing out.

This is also the time of year when seasonal depression might hit — the days just got shorter — and, for whatever reason, it's also a common time of year for breakups. Nothing seems to inspire a "crash out" more than a bad breakup.

But, in general, the internet these days seems to really latch onto words and phrases. And it might just be "crash out's" time. Back in August, when the entire internet was very demure, I wrote about TikTok's propensity for shaping language.

I wrote at the time:

"Think of it this way: in your group of friends — especially during high school or college — you probably had buzzwords and shorthand that only your group understood. You spent so much time together that you developed an internal language. TikTok’s influence on our word usage is similar, only now the friend group is essentially everyone with an internet connection."

Right now, that collective group is latching onto crashing out. The phrase, though not new, is a trend of sorts. As Mashable's Elena Cavender has covered, the internet cycles through this slang with relative rapidity. So right now we're all crashing out — but that likely won't last.