How Come I Never Heard Of This?

I rarely use the word goblin. But last Friday I mentioned the poem "Goblin Market" in my wombat post. Then later that day I was listening to Pilgrim's Progress on R4extra, and found myself singing 'Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend, shall daunt his spirit". But it appears that the venerable Oxford English Dictionary has chosen goblin mode as its word of the year. And furthermore, this year, the WOTY was chosen by public vote [that passed me by too] 

It seems there were three words/phrases I could have chosen from. 

Goblin mode— a slang term referring to “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations” — has been named Oxford’s 2022 Word of the Year.[last year it was vax] The Guardian depicts it thus...

The other two were metaverse [i.e. a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users] 

and the hashtag #IStandWith [ which recognises the activism and division that has characterised this year" and is used by people expressing solidarity with a movement or cause, such as the war in Ukraine]

I am aware of the words vax, and metaverse. I'm not altogether sure that a hashtag should count as WOTY [but Susie Dent said she voted for it, and if anyone should recognise a word, its our Susie. 

It does seem that Goblin Mode  probably won 93% of the votes because of an article in PC Gamer magazine. Not a publication I read, and the article doesn't persuade me to vote for goblin mode [or to read the rest of the PCGamer either!]

This is not an expression I plan to add to my vocabulary. 

And in case you were wondering,"What's the difference between a goblin and a hobgoblin?" I looked it up...

While a goblin is often portrayed in folklore as a grotesque, evil, and malicious creature, a hobgoblin tends to traffic more in mischief than malice. (The character Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream might be regarded as a hobgoblin.) First appearing in English in the early 16th century, hobgoblin combined hob, a word meaning "sprite" or "elf" that derived from Hobbe, a nickname for Robert, with goblin a word ultimately from the Greek word kobalos, meaning "rogue." 

Had you heard of goblin mode?

And will you be using it?