English edit

Etymology edit

Blend of Bay +‎ mayhem, after American director Michael Bay.

Noun edit

Bayhem (uncountable)

  1. (film, fandom slang, often derogatory) Frenetic and fast-paced action characteristic of the films of Michael Bay.
    • 2009, review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Metro (Edmonton, AB), 20 October 2009, page 17:
      Michael Bay’s second Transformers saga delivers full-bore “Bayhem” like a brick to the forehead, with some tender love on the side, making this either the biggest blockbuster of summer ’09 or history’s loudest romance.
    • 2019, Kevin L. Ferguson, Pop Goes the Decade: The Nineties[1], page 46:
      Typical of Michael Bay's manic “Bayhem” style (discussed earlier), Armageddon focuses more on the masculine heroics of the crew sent to blow up the asteroid.
    • 2022, Keith Phipps, Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career, unnumbered page:
      Con Air is Bayhem without the vision—something that was already becoming the prevailing Hollywood action film aesthetic.
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Bayhem.