Definitions by Dumuabzu
Medicine Slurs
A modern, passive-aggressive insult derived from mental health discourse, used to dismiss, invalidate, or pathologize someone's emotions, opinions, or online behavior. The phrase "Take your meds" or its variants ("Did you skip your meds?", "Someone's off their lithium") weaponizes psychiatric treatment as a rhetorical cudgel. It implies the target is inherently irrational, unstable, or delusional, and that their legitimate passion, criticism, or unconventional perspective is merely a symptom of non-compliance with medication. This slur reinforces mental health stigma by framing medication as a tool for social compliance and silencing, rather than a personal medical choice.
Example: In a heated political debate on Twitter, User A presents a well-sourced but emotionally charged critique of a policy. Unable to counter the arguments, User B replies, "Lmao, the conspiracy theories are flying today. Take your meds, schizo." The slur doesn't engage the content; it attempts to medically discredit the speaker, associating their intensity with mental illness and suggesting they'd be silent if properly medicated. It's a way of winning an argument by falsely diagnosing your opponent as crazy. Medicine Slurs.
Medicine Slurs by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Social Media Trauma
Psychological injury resulting from direct, cumulative, or vicarious exposure to harmful experiences on social media platforms. This includes targeted harassment campaigns (dogpiling), doxxing, revenge porn, cyberstalking, extreme public shaming, and witnessing graphic violence or hate speech. Unlike general internet stress, it's tied to the specific architectures of social platforms: viral amplification, permanence of content, network effects linking different life spheres (work, family, friends), and algorithmically-fueled harassment. The trauma stems from the feeling of being hunted, exposed, and powerless in a space that feels ubiquitously connected to one's social identity.
Example: A teenage artist posts a mildly political drawing. It gets picked up by a hate group whose members flood her notifications with rape threats, photoshop her face onto obscene images, find her school, and call her principal accusing her of crimes. She deletes her accounts but knows the images are still out there. She develops panic attacks at phone notifications, isolates from friends, and feels perpetually unsafe. This is acute social media trauma—the platform's features turned a single post into a life-altering assault.
Social Media Trauma by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Internet Trauma Syndrome
The chronic condition resulting from Internet Trauma, characterized by a pervasive distrust of digital technology, compulsive privacy-seeking behaviors (e.g., using burner phones, disk encryption, paranoia about cameras/mics), difficulty forming relationships due to fear of digital exposure, and existential anxiety about the permanence and searchability of one's identity online. It is the lived experience of having one's foundational sense of security and privacy irrevocably damaged by the networked nature of modern life, leading to a functional disability in a society that demands digital participation.
Example: A cybersecurity researcher who was doxxed and swatted by extremists now lives with Internet Trauma Syndrome. They physically tape over all device cameras and microphones, use a separate computer for every single online activity, employ complex voice changers on calls, and have panic attacks when required to fill out a digital form. Their expertise is in the very technology they now find terrifying. They are functionally disabled from participating in normal modern work, social, and civic life, not by a fear of the internet abstractly, but by the lived trauma of its predatory capabilities.
Internet Trauma Syndrome by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Aporophobic Bigotry
The institutional and systemic manifestation of aporophobia—the policies, laws, and social norms designed to punish, exclude, and marginalize poor people. It is the belief system codified into action: that poverty is a contagion to be contained, not a condition to be alleviated; that the poor are a drain on society rather than its most vulnerable members. This bigotry is evident in voter ID laws that disenfranchise the poor, cash bail systems that jail people for poverty, "poor doors" in housing developments, and the underfunding of public schools in low-income districts. It is a structural hostility that blames individuals for systemic outcomes.
Example: A state legislature drastically cuts funding for public transportation in urban centers while increasing subsidies for suburban highways. When challenged, a legislator states, "People who use buses don't pay much in taxes anyway. Let them figure it out." This is aporophobic bigotry: it actively dismantles the infrastructure of mobility for the poor (who rely on buses to get to work) while investing in infrastructure for the affluent, viewing the economic contributions and needs of the poor as negligible and unworthy of public investment. It is policy as punishment for being poor.
Aporophobic Bigotry by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Aporophobic Slurs
Verbal weapons that stigmatize and dehumanize people living in poverty, reinforcing their perceived worthlessness and otherness. These slurs include classic terms like "bum," "hobo," "welfare queen," "leeches," or "street trash," as well as more modern, bureaucratic euphemisms that serve the same function, like "service-resistant" (implying a homeless person is stubbornly choosing their fate) or "non-compliant." They reduce complex human beings and systemic failures to caricatures of laziness, dependency, and filth, making it psychologically easier to justify withholding help or support.
Example: A local news segment interviews a businessman about a new homeless shelter proposal. He opposes it, saying, "We can't keep catering to these drug-addled vagrants who just want a handout. They'll destroy the neighborhood." The slurs "drug-addled vagrants" and "handout" do not describe individuals; they invoke an aporophobic stereotype that frames poverty as a personal moral failing and charity as enabling bad behavior, thus shutting down any empathetic or systemic discussion of solutions. Aporophobic Slurs.
Aporophobic Slurs by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Aporophobia
A term coined by philosopher Adela Cortina, meaning the fear, aversion, and hostility directed specifically toward poor people and poverty itself. It is distinct from classism or economic inequality; it is the visceral disdain for the state of being poor and for those who embody it. Aporophobia is the sentiment behind blaming the poor for their circumstances, viewing them as lazy, dirty, or morally suspect, and justifying their neglect or punishment. It is the emotional engine that drives policies which criminalize homelessness, cut social safety nets, and design public spaces to be hostile to the unhoused.
Example: A city council passes an ordinance making it illegal to sit or lie on downtown sidewalks, installs benches with anti-homeless armrests, and advocates say this is about "public cleanliness and safety." The underlying motivation is aporophobia: a desire to remove the visible evidence and human presence of poverty from the sight of the wealthy, not to solve poverty. The poor person is treated not as a citizen in need, but as an aesthetic and moral pollutant.
Aporophobia by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026
Anti-Pseudoscience Trauma Syndrome Denial
The specific rejection of the syndromic classification of this trauma. Deniers argue that grouping these psychological effects into a "syndrome" legitimizes pseudoscientific beliefs by framing their defenders as patients rather than opponents. They contend it medicalizes a social debate and provides a shield of victimhood for bad actors. This denial is a strategic refusal to allow the human cost of anti-pseudoscience activism to be part of the ethical calculus, ensuring the fight remains "pure" and unconstrained by concerns over psychological harm.
Example: A psychologist publishes a case study detailing the PTSD symptoms in a client who was the subject of a vicious anti-pseudoscience mob. Prominent skeptics dismiss the paper, not by engaging the clinical observations, but by asserting, "This 'syndrome' is a fiction created by the pseudo-community to pathologize their critics. Now they want us to feel guilty for defending science? This is the ultimate pseudoscience—medicalizing their own failure to argue effectively." The denial protects the activists' self-image as noble warriors, incapable of inflicting illegitimate injury. Anti-Pseudoscience Trauma Syndrome Denial.
Anti-Pseudoscience Trauma Syndrome Denial by Dumuabzu January 25, 2026