Gaslighting - What does it even mean?

[Pikonic]

"Gaslighting" was once a tumblr term but is now being used by actual people.
Here's a CNN article that correctly defines gaslighting:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cn...rump-is-gaslighting-america-ghitis/index.html
If you don't feel like clicking I'll explain.
"Gaslighting" is an old term that dates from the 1930-40s. In the 1930s play (and later 1940s film,) called Gaslight, the main character's husband used gaslights to search through her jewelry, causing the lights in the rest of the house to dim. The husband convinces his wife the lights aren't flickering and dimming, his constant lies make her question what she's actually seeing. That's what gaslighting is, that's how it got the name.
Smutley once defined gaslighting as "a tumblr term for telling the truth about someone." Over the years gaslighting became "saying something people don't like." It became a term to throw at someone who disagreed with you.
Using the explanation above we can get two nessassaries about gaslighting.

1.) Gaslighting must be an outright and undisputed lie. The husband tells the wife the lights are just fine when they are not. Since this must be an outright lie, then the truth must be a fact, not an opinion. Saying "I don't think transgender people shouldn't receive SRS from taxpayers money" or "millenials are entitled" isn't gaslighting, it's sharing an opinion. The article posted above mentioned Trump mocking the disabled reporter, saying the left is gaslighting you into thinking that. They're not, they're sharing their opinion.

2.) Gaslighting must be direct. In the play/movie the husband directly lies to his wife. Phil claims the Kiwifarms gaslights him, but that's not true because we don't directly lie to him, we don't directly make him question his reality. You can't gaslight a group of people.

Let's look at this image, posted by an actual person on Facebook:

Sally refuses to be gaslit, which is good because that's not happening here.
"Normalizing Trump" is what happens when people say "Well, he's the president," or "I want to keep an open mind and I really hope he does well for the country." Neither of these are gaslighting, the first statement is the truth and the second statement is wishful thinking.

"So Pikonic, what you're saying is gaslighting isn't real?"
No, gaslighting is real and I sadly have been a victim.

Spoiler: Powerleveling

My ex boyfriend was abusive, physically and mentally. I've mentioned him in the past but here's how he attempted to gaslight me.
We had been together for about a year and I got a new job so I needed to move closer.
When we were looking for apartments to live in together he turned down every one I picked and we visited. He had no input on where to look so I suggested that we still continue to live apart. I had no problem living apart but he got upset, thinking I was gonna bring guys to MY apartment. We broke up about a year later because we couldn't handle living together, which is common among couples. He told me it was my fault because I pushed him into living with me. When I told him I was fine living separate, he acted like I never said that. He kept up this lie thoughout our separation process and made me wonder if my memory was fucked up, did I really push him into living together and do some mental gymnastics so I'd be in the right?
It was only after his sister told me that she remembered he was upset that I suggested living apart did I realize he was lying. When you're the shit end of gaslighting, you don't realize it, this is why "you're gaslighting me" is bullshit.

So why am I making a thread, mostly because I saw real people using this term and I don't want it to be like tumblr, where people overexaggerate their victim status to the point where real victims are laughed to the side.

 

[Blank Slate]

After a brief search, I've come up empty with respect to any real operational definition of the term. This leads me to believe that the term isn't necessarily common currency in mainstream scholarship.

Of course, this isn't to say that this term won't evolve into something wholly divorced form its original context. The image you posted, however, isn't an example of anything close to even the most liberal definition of gaslighting.

I think the word the CNN author is looking for is bullshitting, a type of speech that isn't exactly a lie, but rather a deception short of lying where the purpose of a speech or action is to create an image of the speaker or actor.

 

[Funnybone]

It's one of those things you'll never get across to people. I'm kinda done with the whole 'that's our word' brigade.

Like you, I was a victim of 'gaslighting' with an ex-- but it's kind of one of those things where getting upset at a bunch of autistic teenagers/young adults misusing a word just doesn't do good for the brain. It's mentally exhausting and goes to deaf ears.

 

[punks is hippies]

The ironic thing is the word is actually used in a gaslighting way now, like they know why you voted for someone better than you do

 

[Euphues Evenlede]

Gaslighting is what happens in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Two examples that come immediately to mind from that book are when an orator at a rally changes his chant from "We've always been at war with Eurasia!" to "We've always been at war with Eastasia!" and when Winston Smith is tortured into confessing that the four fingers of his interrogator are actually five. That's the kind of thing I imagine when someone says "I'm being gaslit."

 

[millais]

Gaslighting is what happens in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. Two examples that come immediately to mind from that book are when an orator at a rally changes his chant from "We've always been at war with Eurasia!" to "We've always been at war with Eastasia!" and when Winston Smith is tortured into confessing that the four fingers of his interrogator are actually five. That's the kind of thing I imagine when someone says "I'm being gaslit."

Isn't that called "doublethink"? ie, simultaneously holding two contradictory thoughts to be true.

But in 1984 it was voluntary. "Gaslighting" is kind of like an involuntary or externally imposed doublethink then.

 

[Erida]

In the past few years I saw 'gaslighting' being used on Twitter. It was rampant throughout the anti-GG crowd. When I googled a definition, I ended up on a social justice blog and was left none the wiser.

Then I met my now-ex. It was my first on again/off again type of relationship and after it finally ended, I realised exactly what gaslighting is. I won't post details but I had no idea how much he'd manipulated me until the 'love glasses' fell off (lame term but you get what I mean). Thankfully there was no physical abuse, 'only' mental mind-games, but I did understand how normally smart, mature people get sucked in to abusive relationships.

I agree that I'm not sure how much the word is used outside of online circles. If (more like when) my ex tries crawling back, if I said, "Fuck off, you spent two years gaslighting me!" then I'm doubtful he'd know what I was on about.

I'm not angry about misuse of the word but I think that's because I'm now used to 'SJW' types twisting definitions and creating word salad to suit their needs.

I hope those in the thread that went through gaslighting will be on alert for it in the future so it never happens again. I know I'll be wary of it from now on. That kind of experience stays with you.

 

[Positron]

Gaslighting can only occur in rare situations where the two parties, the "gaslighter" and the victim" are isolated from society and where the victim is dependent, emotionally and often also physically, on the gaslighter. In other words, you cannot "gaslight" someone over phones or the internet.

 

[WW 635]

Gaslighting involves getting the other person to question their sanity and doubt themselves, which does in turn make them more dependent and thus offering the gaslighter more control. In other words, it's a sexy way to get close to your partner.

 

[Fareal]

Gaslighting is often reported by (now adult) children of parents with narcissistic personality disorder. It does a major number on these folk because they grow up from childhood believing their own recollections to be fundamentally unreliable to the point of delusional.

 

[SPARKLETWAT]

Real gaslighting fucks you up so much that you depend on your abuser to keep 'facts' straight.

 

[John Titor]

I know of the term and thought of it as a sort of gradual and subtle form of brainwashing. I was wondering why it's thrown around on tumblr but never looked into it.

Spoiler: Powerlevel and bitching

Anybody else had a friend that used to be a bully to you? Several years ago, I had a friend who tried to pull this shit by accusing me of bullying him even though he "stood up" for me (only half true). I'm like, "you asshole, you did all that to me". Worst part is he tried to turn my friends against me (fortunately, they didn't want to be involved) and this was over the fact that I didn't like a movie he liked. Things fizzled out and we got over it but I was still mad that he tried to pretend that he was always a saint. I've been lied for far too many times so I guess I developed an immunity to it?

 

[AnOminous]

When I grew up, literally all of my friends were "bullies" to each other. We constantly mocked and insulted each other in relentlessly cruel ways. It was an expression of love, though. It was a way of saying "I know you, I know your weaknesses, and I love even those." And then it was followed by a kick in the balls.

Real friends do not let friends grow up to be pussies. They mercilessly torture each other to ensure that they grow up strong.

Oh, almost forgot. The only decent media other than the original Gaslight movie that uses that term.

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I had come across the term before it was a Tumblrism - I forget the exact context, but I believe it was related to elder abuse (i.e. convincing an elderly person that they're going senile by dicking with their memory).

Tumblrinas are very fond of using terms inappropriately. Pointing out the inconsistencies in their lies is "gaslighting." Doing something they don't like is "violence." When someone upsets them, they have "PTSD."

Ironically, this abuse of terminology might be regarded as a form of gaslighting in itself - they're trying to get you to equate not bending to their will with actual abuse.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

Trying to make it impossible to tell what's real or what's false. Then again the way the term is used is pretty idiotic usually

 

[TowinKarz]

Much like anything the SJWs sink their teeth into, whatever it used to mean, it now means "Someone was mean to you and didn't validate your feelings"

 

[Jackal]

I know someone who was abused as a child, and gaslighting was a large part of the abuse in the later years. Their father - the abuser - would insist that the abuse had not happened, that he had not said the horrible things he had said, and that the victim's childhood was puppies and daisies and they were just trying to make things difficult by insisting otherwise. To this day they sometimes have trouble keeping a grasp on reality if you so much as say "Hm, I don't remember saying that, are you sure?"

In short: it fucks people up. The real gaslighting, I mean.

SJW/tumblr gaslighting is another matter entirely, and seems to mean... whatever the person accusing someone of it wants it to mean. Bullshitting? Lying? Disagreeing? Asserting that the accuser misinterpreted what was said? All forms of gaslighting, apparently.

 

[AnOminous]

SJW/tumblr gaslighting is another matter entirely, and seems to mean... whatever the person accusing someone of it wants it to mean. Bullshitting? Lying? Disagreeing? Asserting that the accuser misinterpreted what was said? All forms of gaslighting, apparently.

Not believing them when they flat out lie and make shit up.

 

[Jackal]

Not believing them when they flat out lie and make shit up.

Which is, kind of hilariously, more akin to actual gaslighting on the accuser's part than any of the other things I used as examples. Gotta love how those SJW types almost always use the exact abuse tactics they accuse everyone else of using.

 

[Mr. Burgers]

Gaslighting means messing with someone's mind to get something out of them. I was gaslit by someone after I cut them out after I got tired of his shit because he was desperate to keep in touch with me because I was one of the only people who knew about his struggle with Asperger's and his parents rather than the front he put up for 95% of people.

He'd do things like make accounts on YouThink.com, pretending to be my other friend's dad or others we knew.

He also made a new World of Warcraft character to try to talk to/type at me like our mutual friend (that we both only knew online) just so I'd talk to him again.

He also used Formspring (now spring.me) to ask me anon questions or ask himself Anon questions about me to make me look bad, and
He joined here as AWPerative but didn't post much at all.

He and I are similar but different. We've both had struggles with autism and Asperger's, but I was diagnosed a lot earlier than he was and that made a difference.

AWP hasn't been on Kiwi Farms since sometime in 2015 so I don't expect him to read this. I did a failed LOLcow about him that was locked swiftly.

Most "gaslighting" is much more hostile than what I experienced which was just a lonely person seeking to keep contact with what he saw as a "true friend". Most is more hostile I believe.