The Breakdown

“Gaslighting” was named Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s Word of the Year in 2022, a year in which Internet searches for the word increased by 1,740%. This surge has been attributed to the prevalence and increased social awareness of misinformation. Things like “fake news,” social media trolls, and anxieties about artificial intelligence have brought new modes of deception and manipulation to the forefront of social consciousness. Influenced by these factors, common usage of the word gaslighting has broadened from its original definition. According to Merriam-Webster, gaslighting no longer refers solely to “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone, especially for a personal advantage” (“Word of the Year 2022.” Merriam-Webster). The meaning now encompasses disinformation in various personal, economic, and political contexts. In fact, the term’s popularity has diluted its original meaning to the point that it’s now often used to describe any type of perceived deception.

The Breakdown, which was published in 2017, several years before the term’s surge in popularity, portrays gaslighting in its conventional sense:

[P]sychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator (“