Verbalslighting

The online and social media equivalent of gaslighting—making someone doubt their own memory, perception, or sanity through carefully crafted verbal manipulation, but without the romantic relationship context. Verbalslighting happens when you clearly remember someone saying something, but they've deleted it and now claim they never said it. It's when you screenshot a tweet, and the person responds that the screenshot must be fake. It's when someone in a group chat rewrites history so confidently that you start questioning whether you're the one misremembering. Verbalslighting thrives in digital spaces where evidence can be deleted, edited, or denied, leaving victims alone with their screenshots and their doubt. The only defense is archiving everything, which is exhausting, but necessary when dealing with someone who treats reality as a suggestion.

Example: "She posted a screenshot of his offensive comment. He immediately verbalslighted her, claiming the screenshot was doctored, that he'd never said that, that she was clearly unstable for fabricating evidence. Twenty other people had seen the original comment, but he'd deleted it and now they were all being gaslit into wondering if they'd imagined it. The screenshot remained. The doubt remained. The verbalslighting worked."

by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 15, 2026