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Fauxstalgia
(n.)
The ache for a memory that was AI-generated and never actually lived through.
The app generated a video of Grandpa laughing, stirring fauxstalgia for his grandkids who never got to meet him.
Does it ring true?
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Coinage notes
From faux (French for false) + nostalgia (itself as a coined word for a 1688 doctor’s diagnosis for Swiss mercenaries dying of homesickness). Fauxstalgia is a cousin of anemoia (John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’ word for “nostalgia for a time you never knew”), but here the fabricated memory is your own. When AI can generate a memory that never existed to stir real emotion, it will feel like both a gift and a ghost.
There are 99 more where this came from.
Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (But Soon Will) collects all 100, each with its example sentence and coinage notes, from the bestselling authors of The Future Normal. Hardcover, October 20, 2026.