"virtual factitious disorder", pseuicide", and "bimbot"

[Jonathan Lighter]

In 2012 I coined "hobot."  Not many people know this. It's a specialized
form of robot for the young male demographic.

JL


On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 8:16 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "virtual factitious disorder", pseuicide", and "bimbot"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> All are words used in a review of "VIRTUAL UNREALITY: Just Because
> the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It's True?",  by Charles Seife
> (Viking).  $26.95.  I suspect these words are also present in the
> book itself, but I have not bought it yet.
>
> "virtual factitious disorder" -- a severe disease, publicized on the
> world wide web, possessed by a person who does not exist.  Also known
> as "Munchausen by Internet".
>
> "pseuicide" -- suicide of a non-existent person suffering from an
> incurable virtual factitious disorder.
>
> "bimbot" -- a fake woman created online to entice men.
>
>  From the NYTimes review, now at http://tinyurl.com/q67odoe :
>
> "Then there are sock puppeteers who fabricate phony personas to
> acquire authority or sympathy. It has become so common for bloggers
> to fabricate young people with terrible diseases, the author notes,
> that this syndrome now has a name: "virtual factitious disorder" or
> "Munchausen by Internet."
>
> "Mr. Seife sums up how these stories tend to go: "Create a sock
> puppet or two, give it a tragic problem that will garner sympathy,
> and then commit 'pseuicide.' It's almost guaranteed to cause a big stir."
>
> "Mr. Seife also dilates here upon scam artists, photo manipulators,
> flash trading on the stock market, the promulgation of "bimbots"
> (fake online women created to lure lonely men) and the primordial
> idiocy of sites like Foursquare, which encourage you to tell people
> where you are in order to earn meaningless badges."
>
> Joel
>
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