I learned a new word this morning!

Doomscrolling and doomsurfing are new terms referring to the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing. Many people are finding themselves reading continuously bad news about COVID-19 without the ability to stop or step back.

English is usually kind of a pithy, prosaic language, aside from some of its bizarre grammatical and spelling rules. But once in a while somebody comes up with a coining worthy of the romance languages.

And on more or less the same theme, here’s TUAK’s quote of the day…

H/T to Our Lady of Snark, of course.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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2 Responses to I learned a new word this morning!

  1. Mike says:

    Bruce Schneier pretty much summed up the problem with today’s media and what happens when people are into Doomscrolling.

    https://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_schneier_the_security_mirage

  2. Beans says:

    I’ve heard doomscrolling also referred to as ‘doom porn.’ It has the same, furtive, must hide and look feel to a lot of it.

    It’s why it is so important to wait at least 24 hours before starting to riot or chop heads when the media reports “XYZ happened, caused by PDQ” (usually referring to ‘some poor do-gooding person of color’ being waxed by ‘some badthink Nazi racist Cop.’)

    Yeah, sounds bad what the media is saying about this incident… Until the truth comes out within 24 hours that what the media and what the mob are reporting happened only happened in a Disneyish interpretation of the facts (Disney: The characters are the same, but the story has been changed to whatever we say it is – aka “The Little Mermaid” (who in the original story, dies alone, pining for her prince, who left her for some local royalty.))

    Doom Porn, Doom Scrolling. Both epic phrases for the same concept.

To the stake with the heretic!