‘Queerbaiting.’ ‘Trauma dumping.’ ‘Pinkwashing.’ These are some of the new words added to Dictionary.com
By Harmeet Kaur, CNN
On this hellscape that we call the internet, you’ve probably witnessed a particularly blatant instance of rage farming. Maybe you’ve rolled your eyes at the pinkwashing that abounds during Pride Month. Perhaps you’ve felt violated when a Zoom call fell prey to cyberflashing.
In a sign of our Extremely Online times, these terms describing the bleak realities of our digital sphere are among the latest additions to Dictionary.com. The online reference site announced on Tuesday that it has added 313 new entries, 130 new definitions for existing entries and 1,140 revised definitions — several of which reflect how the internet has shaped our experiences and vernacular.
“It’s not surprising to me that this new digital context of our lives is necessitating a new kind of language,” John Kelly, senior director of editorial at Dictionary.com, told CNN. “And it’s interesting that a lot of a new language does give label to more toxic or harmful behaviors.”
Rage farming, for the uninitiated, refers to “the tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents, typically by posting inflammatory content on social media, in order to elicit angry responses and thus high engagement or widespread exposure for the original poster.” Pinkwashing is when individuals or institutions show superficial support for LGBTQ rights “as a ploy to divert attention from allegiances and activities that are in fact hostile to such liberties” — in other words, talking the talk but not walking the walk. And as you might imagine, cyberflashing is the act of sending unsolicited, sexually explicit visuals online.
Such words and phrases aren’t necessarily new — indeed, those who spend a lot of time on social media have likely encountered or used them for years. But their inclusion in the dictionary signals that they’ve reached a certain level of popularity and mainstream usage, Kelly said.
Take, for instance, the newly added entry queerbaiting. The term is slang for “a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people.” In recent years, celebrities including Harry Styles, Bad Bunny and Cardi B have been accused of the practice (though critics of the term say it invites unfair speculation around a person’s sexuality and polices gender expression).
Another term in Dictionary.com’s latest update, trauma dumping, points to the social media discourse around mental health. The phrase, which describes an unsolicited offloading of negative experiences and feelings onto an unsuspecting person, was at the center of a TikTok controversy in 2021 and has since been the subject of several online articles.
New additions also reflect how we discuss identity
The internet isn’t all doom and gloom. It’s also made it easier for people to connect with each other, which in turn, has given rise to more nuanced ways of discussing identity, Kelly said. Many of the new additions reflect a shift toward more inclusive language.
“WOC,” short for woman of color, made the list, as did “Latine,” an alternative to the divisive, gender-neutral term “Latinx.” The terms multisexual and sexual minority offer more expansive ways of talking about sexuality, while anti-fat captures negative cultural attitudes toward fat bodies.
Among the lighter entries are petfluencer, which can describe either a person who has amassed a large internet following by posting pictures of their pet or a pet who itself has achieved internet fame, as well as fan service, a term for material added to a fictional work for the benefit of its fans.
Other newly added words and phrases of note include liminal space, self-coup, cakeism, 988, subvariant, microdosing, dosa, and paratha.
The-CNN-Wire
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