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Leisure & Play
(n.)
The unrealistic expectation that real life should move with the pace, polish and payoff of a social media reel.
Every dish at the supper club was plated with pure reelism, engineered for the closeup shot rather than the actual taste.
Does it ring true?
From the future, or already here?
The social media Reel combined with realism, the nineteenth-century art + photography movement devoted to showing life exactly as it was. Reelism is its mirror image: life portrayed as a paragon it could never be. Where “highlight reel syndrome” names how others’ reels make us feel, reelism names what they’ve done to our expectations of everything else.
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.