Jack Beresford is a Newsweek Senior Internet Culture & Trends Reporter, based in London, UK. His focus is reporting on trending topics on the Internet, he covers viral stories from around the world on ...

In the late 1990s, a friend told me she had used the word “exponentially” in a debate with her brother-in-law. “That’s not a word!” her brother-in-law insisted. “Of course it is,” my friend replied.