Shadow Banding

A reactive emotional pattern that develops in response to the rubber band effect. When one partner repeatedly snaps back into the relationship, the other—wary of the cycle—begins forming secret emotional or romantic connections. Shadow banding is the quiet stretch: a hidden coping mechanism born from mistrust, grief, or emotional exhaustion. It’s not about cheating—it’s about survival when the relationship feels unstable or unsafe.

After she came back and ran off the girls I was dating, I started shadow banding—keeping quiet connections just in case she left again.

by Briton Phillip September 3, 2025

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Shadow Banning

Shadow banning, also called stealth banning, ghost banning or comment ghosting, is the act of blocking or partially blocking a user or their content from an online community so that it will not be readily apparent to the user that they have been banned. For instance, shadow banned comments posted to a blog or media website will not be visible to other persons accessing that site from their computers.

By partly concealing, or making a user's contributions invisible or less prominent to other members of the service, the hope may be that in the absence of reactions to their comments, the problematic or otherwise out-of-favour user will become bored or frustrated and leave the site, and that spammers and trolls will not create new accounts.

I was trolling a snowflake FB group and got my ass shadow banned, it was fun while it lasted.

Dude i have to keep shadow banning these extremists for posting lies and fake news.

by Sir Kick Ass October 14, 2020

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