Acronym
What does FOMO mean?
Fear of missing out: fear of being outside the party, the job, the couple — whatever the feed insists is happening now.
Definition
FOMO is the tug of being left out. The cousin FOBO (fear of a better option) names another freeze: fear of choosing because a better option might appear. JOMO — joy of missing out — is a declared taste for staying home. If the feed freezes a life, the fear has left the meme and become the day’s suffering.
Origin
English fear of missing out. Dan Herman described the phrase in 2000, in branding, in a Journal of Brand Management paper. Patrick McGinnis, an HBS student, coined the acronym FOMO — and FOBO, with the gag FODA — in The Harbus on 10 May 2004, in Social Theory at HBS: McGinnis’ Two FOs. The two tracks met later; the acronym that stuck was the student-paper one.
History
From the MBA the name moved to Instagram Stories. Przybylski and colleagues (Computers in Human Behavior, July 2013) gave the 10-item scale (FoMOs) that research started citing. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary logged FOMO in 2013. JOMO arrived as a cover antidote: the taste of missing the party on purpose.
How it emerged
The permanent shop window needed a short name for the fear of not being in it. The marketing phrase was long; four letters fit a tweet and a group chat.
Usage examples
I cancelled and FOMO hit at 11 p.m.
Career FOMO is a different animal from party FOMO.
Translations
- pt FOMO
- en FOMO
- es FOMO
Synonyms
- fear of missing out
- FOBO
- JOMO
Acronyms
- FOMO
- JOMO