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Gaslighting is Word of the Year 2022
- orthoxerox 4y agoNo it isn't, you're imagining things.
- Apofis 4y agoStop being so dramatic.
- bergenty 4y agoIt’s never your fault, you’re always the gaslit victim
- hnarn 4y agoSince gaslighting by definition means that you’re invalidating someone’s view of reality and basically calling them insane, I have a hard time seeing how it could be the victims fault. You can disagree with people, and you can say that you don’t agree with their description of reality, but neither of those things are gaslighting.
- throw310822 4y agoSometimes when trying to convince someone that they're wrong, you need to point out that there is a bias in their vision of reality. A bias is not a wrong logical step that can be fixed simply by pointing it out: it affects the ability itself to follow a different argument, and the entire view of reality. Think for example of someone who is in a cult or deep into a religious belief; or think about those who believe in conspiracy theories of all kinds. They're basically called insane every day even in the media. Would you call that gaslighting?
- Lutger 4y agoI would call that gaslighting yes. Basically you're declaring their judgement incapacitated in some way and try to convince them to abandon their views or change their behavior by distrusting their own sanity. You may think you are right in this, but it is still gaslighting. An alternative approach would be to just point out the facts and use arguments, and counter their falsehoods, which implicitly recognizes their ability for sound reasoning. That is not gaslighting, but merely debate. I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone.
- gyulai 4y ago> I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone. Manipulating others is pretty much the activity most highly rewarded by our economy. It's deeply immoral but someone with no morals clearly does have very good reason to engage in gaslighting or other forms of manipulation. So it's a good thing if there's a growing awareness on the part of victims.
- mrguyorama 4y agoIs all advertising gaslighting?
- throw310822 4y ago> I doubt there is ever a really good reason to gaslight someone. "gaslighting" is defined as a form of manipulation that an abuser uses to sow self-doubt in a victim. But telling someone that they're dead wrong- while it might not the most effective way of convincing- is not necessarily a form of manipulation, nor the person on the receiving end must be considered a victim. If you're trying to convince someone to leave a cult, or to abandon conspiratorial thinking, or to reject the propaganda that they've heard all their life, or to stop blaming their parents or partners for everything that's wrong in their lives.. you might face a point in which you have to tell that person that they're wrong and their biases are corrupting their vision of reality. The attempt however is not manipulative nor the person on the other end is a victim- quite the contrary.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rocketbop 4y agoI had to look this up last year, and was surprised that it's not a new term. It does seem to have risen in usage in the last 5 years, I never heard or read it growing up.
- Borrible 4y agohttps://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/01/12/how-old-is-gaslight/ https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2017/01/12/how-...
- gsatic 4y agoPeople are just a bit more conscious of the various ways they can be manipulated. It's such a large and ever evolving set of patterns, that everyone is seeing them everywhere and in everything. The options to change/break the patterns isn't evolving at the same rate.
- yieldcrv 4y agoPeople only look it up because they have to second guess the meaning of it when someone else uses it improperly or in a dilutive way
- Borrible 4y agoYour obsession with recently invented pseudoscientific psychological constructs is worrisome, dear.
- endgame 4y agoIronic choice, coming from a dictionary that regularly redefines words in service of political aims.
- becquerel 4y agoHorrifying, that language may evolve and change as time progresses
- concordDance 4y agoSome evolution is natural (e.g. a majority using it in X way) and some is the result of political fights.
- rtpg 4y agoDo you believe that the "original" definitions are not also the result of political fights?
- concordDance 4y agoFor a much smaller number of words there have been political fights, yes. But the age of the dictionary, large scale political organization and long distance communication are relatively new compared to the age of most words in a language.
- ClassyJacket 4y ago
- becquerel 4y agoI think politics is natural and organic.
- hnbad 4y agoDo you understand that words can have different, multiple and even conflicting definitions and a dictionary merely represents how words are used? For reference, Miriam-Webster's defines woman as such[1]: Your opposition isn't to the definition of "woman" but the definition of "female": adjective 1. a (1): of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs (..) b: having a gender identity that is the opposite of male noun 1. a: a female person : a woman or a girl b: an individual of the sex that is typically capable of bearing young or producing eggs But these are clearly two different meanings of the word "female": one based on reproduction and another based on gender identity. So there is no contradiction in saying that a "woman" can be a person with a female gender identity who does not meet the reproductive definition of "female". Note that it also defines gender identity: noun a person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female Additionally it helpfully defines gender itself: noun (..) 2. a: SEX sense 1a b: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex c: GENDER IDENTITY For completion's sake here's the definition of sex it references: either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures So "gender" can refer to reproductive characteristics, gender identity or "the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex". Note that this says "typically associated with" not "inherent in" as these attributes are all mutable and vary. It also provides a helpful usage guide for the differences between "gender" and "sex" because the distinction can be confusing if you never had to think about it much. In other words, it's not actually "redefined the word 'woman' to include males", it has merely added nuances that better reflect how the word is used in practice. Note that the definition of "sex" is also handwaving a lot of the complexity (e.g. by saying "typically" a lot) because in practice it's better described by this humongous chart: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-the-extraordinary-complexity-of-sex-determination/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/beyond-xx-and-xy-... Note that a lot of the stuff in the bucket of "intersex conditions" can be easy to miss when sex is assessed at birth and what the person looks like as an adult is determined by a number of hormone washes starting before birth and only ending after puberty. You can say "oh but these are exceptions" but 1) so are trans people and 2) exceptions need to be considered if you care about a definition being correct. It's also interesting that you seem to focus on the existence of trans women, not trans men. Male puberty (i.e. testosterone) is much harder to "undo" than the opposite. You have the choice between the absurdity of calling someone like Shawn Stinson[5] "a female" and insisting that he must use the women's restroom or acknowledging that if you didn't know he is trans, for all intents and purposes outside intimacy he is obviously a man. [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woman https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woman [2]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female [3]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender%20identity https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender%20identity [4]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender [5]: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y3cdHPl_hdw/VZTTItWC6yI/AAAAAAAA0KU/kE1qky7MNDQ/s1600/shawn3.png http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y3cdHPl_hdw/VZTTItWC6yI/AAAAAAAA0K...
- dandanua 4y agoThe article should better explain what gaslighting is not. It's misleading to use the word "gaslighting" as a synonym to "lie", "deceit" or "fraud". Lies in general are used to gain unfair advantage, but in most situations we can think of it as a stealing. Gaslighting is much more than that. It's a psychological murder.
- automatic6131 4y ago>It's misleading to use the word "gaslighting" as a synonym to "lie", "deceit" or "fraud". It would be nice if that was as far as it drifted. I've seen it used as a synonym for "disagreeing [with me]" and "mistaken".
- a4a4a4a4 4y agoWell, if you're disagreeing with someone who cannot conceive that they _might_ be wrong, then to them you _are_ gaslighting them. Even though they're just wrong and refusing to engage.
- executesorder66 4y agoNo. Because only if they _could_ conceive that they were wrong, would you be gaslighting them. You have to succeed at making them doubt themselves for it to be gaslighting.
- a4a4a4a4 4y agoStop gaslighting me. /s
- kortilla 4y agoWell if you don’t convince them, then you’re just “trying to gaslight them”. I’ve been on the receiving end of this stupidity.
- executesorder66 4y ago
- snickerbockers 4y ago'Gaslighting' will always make me think of that scene from dumb & dumber where he makes a flame thrower by farting on a lighter.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y agoI’m no prescriptivist, but can’t help but find the dilution of meaning of this term to be disappointing. There’s plenty of other words for lying, but there’s no other word for gaslighting. I wonder if the word is by its nature particularly prone to semantic drift. If somebody’s in the state of mind where they are talking about gaslighting, they are not ready to receive the message that they are using the word wrong. Nobody wants to die on the hill of correcting the usage of this term, so there’s no natural guardrails to stabilize its meaning.
- spoonjim 4y agoAll words with bad connotations get overused and diluted: gaslighting, racism, bigot, etc.
- a4a4a4a4 4y agoFound the fascist. ... /s
- imartin2k 4y agoConcept creep. Should be word of the decade or something :)
- ben_w 4y agoNot only negative connotations, but also. My grandmother (born around the time Ireland gained independence from the UK) used "Irish" to mean "stupid" shortly before her Alzheimer's diagnosis. When my mother (born during WW2) also got an Alzheimer's diagnosis, she started using "glory hole" to refer to the kitchen cupboard. (I had to look it up, but it's apparently a legit though obsolete meaning). "Democratise" is my personal bugbear. Doesn't have anything to do with voting or dispute resolution. My dad had a problem with the words "millennium" not being used for the period starting Jan 1, 2001, and the word "gay" switching from the mid-20th-century meaning to the late-20th-century meaning.
- matt-attack 4y agoDon't forget "sexual assault".
- Havoc 4y agoStruck me more as a 2019 word. Haven’t heard it a lot lately
- lamontcg 4y ago2016/2017 was when it became popular
- executesorder66 4y agoYou are more correct. Looking at google trends the term has been steadily rising in interest since about 2016. I always find it interesting when people insist on a specific date for something's peak popularity, but they never say where they get that info from. This meme was so 2013, or that was so 2004. Like why do you care so much about this one specific topic that you memorized the specific year that it's popularity was at it's peak?
- lamontcg 4y agoAlso depends if we're talking about the initial "epidemic" spread of the meme, rather than when it became "endemic". The term "gaslighting" has never been more popular than now, so it still hasn't reached any kind of peak but it is definitely "endemic" at this point so it feels like "yesterday's news" if you caught it back in 2016.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoGaslighting has some quite subtle meanings that we can see in relation to tech. It isn't merely undermining someone's sense of sanity by disagreeing, or pointing out their logical missteps or forgetfulness. Gaslighting is the deliberate manipulation of reality and expectations so as to lead a person to themselves doubt their own sanity. Like hiding someone's car keys just before they are to leave. Back in the '10s we had a saying going around Shoreditch tech scene, "Creepy is the new cool". Suddenly finding ads on your phone for the things you were just talking about. Having gadgets "automagically" sync your documents to other devices without your say-so. That feeling of "did I really copy that to the iThing?" was simultaneously exciting and unnerving. There is such a thing as "the warm thrill of confusion" [1]. At a certain point that becomes gaslighting. When Amazon deleted "Nineteen Eighty Four" from Kindle, that was a seminal tech gaslighting moment. As "AI" is integrated into more services and users are robbed of agency under the auspices of "convenience", we can expect to see more people feeling "gaslighted" by tech, or by others via technology. It is also a hallmark of narcissistic manipulators who like to cultivate dependency by undermining the agency of others, so it sits well with many present tech powers such as advertisers. Remote control amplifies this possibility. In the limit, gaslighting is a soft word for a some particular activities in psyops; demoralisation and discombobulation (which should be the all-time word of the year :) [1] https://www.davemcnally.com/album-lyrics/the-wall/pink-floyd/ https://www.davemcnally.com/album-lyrics/the-wall/pink-floyd...
- ianai 4y agoI dig “creepy is the new cool.” I think we’ve evolved from that to “being gaslit is the wallpaper for most conversations.” Seemingly any point will be contradicted by someone, no matter how untruthful or outright wrong to malicious the counterpoint. It’s as though people are live action role playing the worst of the internet in person at times. Edit-source for the 1984 deletion: https://slate.com/technology/2009/07/how-amazon-s-remote-deletion-of-e-books-from-the-kindle-paves-the-way-for-book-banning-s-digital-future.html https://slate.com/technology/2009/07/how-amazon-s-remote-del...
- siquick 4y ago> I think we’ve evolved from that to “being gaslit is the wallpaper for most conversations.” Seemingly any point will be contradicted by someone, no matter how untruthful or outright wrong to malicious the counterpoint. It’s as though people are live action role playing the worst of the internet in person at times. I’d start questioning your own circles if that’s your experience of “real life”. Can’t say I’ve ever experienced anyone I consider a friend, family, or a colleague of note acting like that.
- paulpauper 4y ago2022? about 2-4 years late on that one
- metafunctor 4y agoI have teenage children, and I had to explain to them what gaslighting really means. It used to refer to subtle psychological manipulation over a long time to achieve a brainwashing effect. For the TikTok generation, “gaslighting” is just a synonym for “misleading”.
- mothsonasloth 4y agoThis is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
- taoufix 4y agoAs a non-native English speaker, I first heard of this word during the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial.
- oytis 4y agoWhy? The word has been around for quite some years already, and 2022 had a lot of important events going on, there are much more relevant words to choose from.
- bazoom42 4y agoWhat word(s) do you suggest?
- cromka 4y agoI suppose Russia's and Trump's modus operandi is based exactly on gaslighting. So was Bolsonaro's. Not only pretending they weren't wrongdoing, but that the accusers are the ones who lie and are not seeing things clearly. We see it a lot in politics these days.
- Georgelemental 4y ago> Other tribe bad my tribe good Neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on lies and bad faith attacks, far from it. Some political movement are more guilty of it than others, but no political movement is fully innnocent, and no political movement can be defined uniquely in terms of these. Also, "gaslighting" in its original meaning is far more specific than "lies and bad faith," it's a shame that that meaning is being diluted.
- donmaq 4y ago> Neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on lies and bad faith attacks, far from it. Some political movement are more guilty of it than others, but no political movement is fully innnocent, and no political movement can be defined uniquely in terms of these. These statements are a combination of false equivalence and no true scottsman. Nobody said 1 political party/etc is "fully innocent". What is useful & cogent is pointing out how much more 1 party is using gaslighting et al, systematically & unapologetically, than the other party. And just how effective those tactics are, to the detriment of the social commons, and social contract.
- LAC-Tech 4y agopsychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator Weird thoughts I've been having; for social harmony it's much more important to share a perception of reality, than it is for any individual to have an accurate perception of reality. Attempting to find an objective truth that conflicts with a shared vision of reality isn't something brave or admirable, it's weird and disruptive. Polite society will cast you out. I think this is hard wired to us. We want to be told what reality is by people or groups with clout, people who are cool and have prestige, and we're hard-wired to just believe it. I think this is why most people outside the overton window feel inherently unpleasant. To most normal, well adjusted people, threatening to tear down the social fabric of our shared reality is just plain disgusting. (Not to say that every (or even many!) people outside that window have an accurate perception of reality - but the veracity is almost irrelevant - what's abhorrent to us is that they're trying to destroy it in the first place. That's the real crime.)
- jl6 4y agoCounterpoint: “objective truth” is the mainstream viewpoint and the “reality is a shared perception” folk are the ones being weird and disruptive, gaslighting people into questioning whether a spade is really a spade.
- selfhoster11 4y agoThis. "Reality is a shared perception" works only for as long as reality is comfortable enough to indulge your misperception. You cannot wish yourself into having more money in your bank account, or out of an energy crisis. Reality will validate your perception, and if you fail that validation, you will be the one who will have to take the consequences for it.
- LAC-Tech 4y agoHere's a concrete example - if you have a cursory knowledge of history you'll inevitably encounter various little facts that contradict the main "theme" that we as a society share. I'm not talking about revisionism. I mean stuff that's written plain as day on Wikipedia, will be mentioned in passing by any mainstream respected historian, etc etc. You're still a fucking weirdo if you bring it up.
- RHSman2 4y agoNo it isn’t.
- aaron695 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- incomingpain 4y agoDo you know the joke about gaslighting? Oh sure you do, I don't need to tell you again.
- JaceLightning 4y agoWe should try to convince people that "mood-lighting" is the word of the year.