Botlighting

Botlighting
(verb/noun) — also: botlit, botlit me, getting botlit
When an AI confidently insists on something false with such authority that you begin doubting your own memory, experience, or reasoning — even when you were right all along.
Unlike gaslighting, there is no malicious intent. The AI isn't trying to manipulate you. But the effect on the person is the same: confusion, self-doubt, and the unsettling feeling of having to fight to trust your own mind.
"I got botlit for 20 minutes before I finally proved it with receipts."
Origin:
Blend of bot (automated AI system) and gaslighting (psychological manipulation that makes a person question their own reality). Coined to describe a specific and increasingly common experience in the age of AI assistants.
Related forms:

botlit (past tense): "I got botlit"
botlighting (noun/gerund): "That was pure botlighting"
botlit me (verb): "The AI botlit me completely"

I knew what I had said, but ChatGPT kept insisting I was wrong with so much confidence that I started questioning myself. Classic botlighting.

Botlighting by George Michaelson April 22, 2026

boyslighting 

Gaslighting when done by a man. Can refer to some type of gaslighting specific to men and/or to being a man.

Opposite of girlslighting

You've been boyslighting me! That was Hitler's car!

boyslighting by devscoots July 8, 2023

baitlighting 

When you tell someone you think they are baiting to make them wonder if the belief/argument they stated was that ridiculous.

Joe: I was losing an argument so I just told the guy he was baiting.

John: Haha this is a classic example of the phenomenon known as baitlighting, it's as if you gaslit him that he was baiting!

baitlighting by SaladBroski May 13, 2023

Banlighting

A form of digitallighting specifically aimed at getting someone banned from a server, group, community, or website. The perpetrator provokes or frames the target until the target reacts, then uses that reaction (often isolated from context) to report them. Banlighting often spreads to related communities, as the perpetrator warns other moderators about the “toxic” target, effectively blacklisting them across multiple spaces. The goal is not just exclusion but the destruction of the target’s ability to find community.

Example: “After she disagreed with a moderator’s friend, he spent a week baiting her in DMs. When she finally called him out in public, he reported her—and was she was banned from three connected servers within hours. Banlighting: engineered exile.”

Banlighting by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 25, 2026