"burnt toast theory" meaning in English

See burnt toast theory in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Etymology: Possibly first used in a video posted April 4, 2023 to Instagram by @latenightepiphanies_, who explained: "it's basically the theory that if you burn your toast in the morning (something challenging happens), the time you spend making another toast may have saved you from a car accident. […] everything happens for a reason." The concept was popularized on TikTok around January 2024. Head templates: {{en-prop}} burnt toast theory
  1. (Internet slang) The mindset that a seemingly negative event in a person's life could have actually prevented something even worse from occurring. Wikipedia link: Instagram Tags: Internet
    Sense id: en-burnt_toast_theory-en-name-6BMJv6Mf Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for burnt toast theory meaning in English (1.9kB)

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  "etymology_text": "Possibly first used in a video posted April 4, 2023 to Instagram by @latenightepiphanies_, who explained: \"it's basically the theory that if you burn your toast in the morning (something challenging happens), the time you spend making another toast may have saved you from a car accident. […] everything happens for a reason.\" The concept was popularized on TikTok around January 2024.",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 16, Shaeden Berry, “TikTok’s Burnt Toast Theory Is All About Embracing Life’s Frustrations”, in Refinery29, archived from the original on 2024-01-30",
          "text": "So many of us search for ideas like the burnt toast theory to help us find meaning in terrible moments, but why?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 18, “'Burnt Toast Theory': What It Is And Why It Went Viral”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 2024-01-29",
          "text": "One TikToker who applied burnt toast theory to her dating life said that under this helpful mindset, if \"somebody ghosts you, great. They've spared you from their inability to communicate.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The mindset that a seemingly negative event in a person's life could have actually prevented something even worse from occurring."
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      "id": "en-burnt_toast_theory-en-name-6BMJv6Mf",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Internet slang) The mindset that a seemingly negative event in a person's life could have actually prevented something even worse from occurring."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Internet"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Instagram"
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  "word": "burnt toast theory"
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{
  "etymology_text": "Possibly first used in a video posted April 4, 2023 to Instagram by @latenightepiphanies_, who explained: \"it's basically the theory that if you burn your toast in the morning (something challenging happens), the time you spend making another toast may have saved you from a car accident. […] everything happens for a reason.\" The concept was popularized on TikTok around January 2024.",
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      "examples": [
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          "ref": "2024 January 16, Shaeden Berry, “TikTok’s Burnt Toast Theory Is All About Embracing Life’s Frustrations”, in Refinery29, archived from the original on 2024-01-30",
          "text": "So many of us search for ideas like the burnt toast theory to help us find meaning in terrible moments, but why?",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2024 January 18, “'Burnt Toast Theory': What It Is And Why It Went Viral”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 2024-01-29",
          "text": "One TikToker who applied burnt toast theory to her dating life said that under this helpful mindset, if \"somebody ghosts you, great. They've spared you from their inability to communicate.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
        "The mindset that a seemingly negative event in a person's life could have actually prevented something even worse from occurring."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Internet slang) The mindset that a seemingly negative event in a person's life could have actually prevented something even worse from occurring."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "Internet"
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        "Instagram"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.