The expansion of Terminology and 1984:

In Orwell's 1984, thoughts are controlled by controlling language with the goal of preventing dissident thoughts not only from being expressed but from being thought of in the first place. I believe language, specifically creating "new vocabularies" has an anti-authoritarian value. And as a result I've been an enormous fan of the expanding vocabularies thriving on the internet.

For as much as people like to laugh at, for example, how many different genders there are, if you actually spend some time looking through niche gender-identities, you'll find they are pointing to some pretty relatable human experiences. Chameleogender, for example, is a niche gender identity defined by "feeling more like a man when you're around men and more like a woman when you're around women." Whether or not one decides to treat it as their identity, I think most people can relate to changing their behavior to match the people around them, and sometimes this means being more manly around men and more feminine around women.

You might say "okay sure, but I don't think we need a whole term just for that" but I think coining terms for relatable experiences is of extreme importance.

For example, did you know that the term "Sexual Harassment" hasn't always existed?

It was coined as a term by Lawyer Lin Farley in the 1970's. But of course sexual harassment as a practice existed long before we had a catchy term for it. Many of the women Lin was representing shared their experiences with their employers but had no idea, at the time how to properly file complaint about it, because there was no formal offense. They weren't necessarily physically assaulted, or verbally bullied, rather there were frequent unwanted sexual advances.

Imagining just how much power was gained by women the moment they had a shared word to describe this experience inspires me to air on the side of new terms whenever I see one emerge.

There are 3 very-online terms I want to highlight the value of today: Smooth-Brained, Gaslighting, and Pretty Privilege. All of them are somewhat rarely used and even cringed at by people unfamiliar with them, this is common with new language, it takes time and personal familiarity to become comfortable with a phrase, but each of these terms is objectively useful.

Smooth-Brained: conspiracy theorists often repeat the phrase "do your own research" and nauseum, which can seem painfully ironic since many of their views are ridiculous, and any amount of research outside of headlines could disprove them. I think the reason this stays around is because conspiracy theorists have a fundamentally different way of thinking. They have a different definition of "Open-minded."

To me to be "Open-minded" means: "pursuing truth and being willing to set aside your own biases in pursuit of truth." One time I was talking to someone who believed in nymphs and other magical creatures. I tried my best to be respectful while disagreeing, at some point in the conversation I ended up saying "it just doesn't seem to me like there's any good reason to believe this other than simply wanting to, there's no evidence, no impact, no pragmatic reason to believe this." They said "it doesn't matter that there isn't any evidence, I'm not trying to convince you I'm right, I'm just telling you what I believe. You should really be more Open-minded."

That made me realize that their definition of Open-minded was the exact opposite of mine. To them open-minded means "allowing different people to have their own truths, without reconciling them." It's a lot like children playing. One says "I'm half dragon" the other says "well I am a dragon-mancer, I control dragons, and I command you to kiss the dirt " the first child, rather than confronting that they are not in fact half-dragon ad-libs an explanation. "Well I have a dragonmancy-proof forcefield so you can't control me." They're not pursuing truth, the exact opposite, their trying not to step on each other's toes, introducing truth into the equation just gets in the way of the jazz-like improvisation of reality.

That is why I like the term "Smooth-Brained" which has emerged in some online political spaces and debates. It gives people the language to call out when someone isn't behaving as if they are interested in pursuing truth, but are instead allowing very different ideas to coexist in their heads at once.

Gaslighting: stop me if this has happened to you: a know-it-all makes an incorrect guess about something and then covers their tracks by pretending the correct answer was what they meant all along. "Is the Pacific Ocean on the east coast or the west coast?" "The west" "huh, I just googled it and it says it's the east coast." "Oh you meant east or west of America!, Well in that case I guess it's on the west, you should have been more specific."

Or how about "empathetically" dismissing your experiences?: "I'm telling you that guy was staring at me in a creepy way" "oh, I think you're just imagining things, he seemed nice to me."

This is called Gaslighting: deliberately causing someone to doubt themselves or their reality for manipulative purposes. The term used to be reserved for extreme ongoing forms of abuse where abuse victims are made to believe that they are crazy so that their abuser can define their reality for them. Some people believe it should continue to be used exclusively in that way, people are often uncomfortable with language changes like this. They feel that A: it diminishes more severe cases of gaslighting for the term to be used for more minor things, and B: that it gives undue weight to the event in question.

In my opinion, those feelings fade as familiarity increases, I remember when I was younger I would laugh along with older people making fun of how dumb it was that young people feel the need to come up with abbreviations for everything. I cringed at anybody who texted the word "lol" and I cringed even harder if they said it out loud in real life (IRL.) But as I got older I realized how silly it was to distance myself from my own generation, my own culture just to impress older people, many of whom themselves changed their tune after social media reached older generations.

OCD is a pretty sound alternative to saying "anal" short for "anal-retentive" I think, but whichever you choose to use I'm glad there's a term for it.

Pretty Privilege: at some point around a year ago I started seeing headlines with "Pretty Privilege" in them, I never investigated the concept much one day a handful of my left-wing friends mentioned it. I said "oh yeah I think I saw something about that, I'm glad there's finally a term for that catching on, hopefully it starts a conversation about just how rough it is not to be conventionally attractive." My friends looked at me with a face that I could tell meant that "the left" broadly-speaking online had decided that "Pretty Privilege" was a ridiculous concept.

I think the reason they rejected the term is because they choose to believe beauty is entirely subjective. Ironically believing that "beauty is subjective" is a great example of "Pretty Privilege." See, "white privilege" (the term from which all other "privileges" are probably derived) doesn't just mean "things are better for you cause you're white." It's actually more about what doesn't happen to you. You probably aren't as afraid when you're stopped by the police, white women don't grip their purses tighter when you walk by them, etc. And more than that it's about the ignorance that this creates. For many white people, being white is neutral, it's normal, it's the perceived standard.

If you apply this same logic to "Pretty Privilege" things make a lot more sense. It's not just about life being better because you're prettier, it's about not having to be aware of how much beauty matters, because it doesn't intrude your life often. It doesn't negatively affect you. Believing that beauty is subjective is easy to say when you've never lost the lead role in a play because you look more like a side character, or had to watch others go on dates with people they have a lot in common with, while you remain "just friends" with people you have a lot in common with. If you've never had people police you're diet or hygiene because they quietly think of you as fat and slobby.

At the end of the day, I don't necessarily expect everyone to agree on everything, some people will dislike these terms because they feel they're connected to beliefs they disagree with, and that's okay, I just hope people err on the side of expanding their vocabulary and finding more and more new terms for things instead of pushing against terminologies the way I did with "lol."