DoubleThink

When you see potentially creepy and worrisome reasons for someone's words or actions. There are likely plenty of normal explanations, but the creepiness is stuck in your head and you might start to believe it.

You are more likely to doublethink if you are sad, depressed, or recently have experienced something highly disturbing.

Could be caused by a loss of trust in the honesty and innocence of the world, or maybe you're on drugs.

When your boyfriend/girlfriend says "I'll wait for you forever," is it sweet, or creepy?

Michael: "The way Andrew whispers to himself sometimes makes me think he's psycho."
Emma: "Stop double-thinking, he's just trying to remember what the homework was or has a song stuck in his head."

Krystal: "When I found out my boyfriend was a pedophile, I started to doublethink everything my friends and relatives say and do. Maybe they're secretly creepers too."
Jose: "Holy shit. You need help."

by Tmape August 12, 2010

Doublethinking

The Orwellian capacity, often enforced by a group or regime, to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accept both, especially as a result of political indoctreration. The group learns to consciously engage in intellectual dishonesty to remain loyal, accepting that "war is peace," "freedom is slavery," and that the party's latest doctrine has always been true, even if it directly contradicts yesterday's truth. It is groupthink weaponized to break individual reasoning.

Example: In a totalitarian state, citizens practice Doublethinking by genuinely celebrating both the leader's supreme, infallible genius and the constant purges of his closest advisers for "treasonous errors." The group norm requires accepting that the leader could never make a mistake, and that the disgraced advisers were always flawed, without perceiving the contradiction.

by Dumuabzu February 5, 2026