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Sick of FOMO? Yeah, us too…
We can all breathe a sigh of relief, because thankfully, FOMO (otherwise known as the Fear Of Missing Out) is, well, no longer such a big thing. It was the rather evil acronym that started doing the rounds in 2011 and perfectly encapsulated (or enhanced) a feeling that we knew all too well: the worry that if we didn’t drag ourselves out for drinks after work on a Friday night, we were missing out in a major way.
We’d scroll through our social media feeds, seeing posts of the world and his wife living it up on the weekends and felt inadequate for choosing to forgo a wet night on the town in favour of PJs, and a Netflix binge.
The below now does the rounds instead, and quite frankly, as Valentine’s Day lingers, some of us are all about JOMO…
BROMO: This is quite a nice one and is being used to describe an act of your ‘bros’ (i.e., friends) not posting pictures of the party you missed, so as to avoid rubbing things in. They are basically preventing you from feeling FOMO, which is what real friends are for.
JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out): You feel a sense of euphoric joy as you snuggle in front of the fire on Saturday night. You may be missing out, but you couldn’t be happier. This one is about accepting the realities of the present and choosing to see behind the fun yet contrived snaps on Facebook and living in the now.
FOJI (Fear Of Joining In): This is one we hope you won’t feel that often and it’s based on the idea of opting out of a social event because you don’t know anyone or worse, you’re afraid they won’t like you. It also extends to social media whereby you opt-out of Instagram for fear you won’t get enough likes. We discourage such thoughts and encourage you to embrace being yourself, fun events and Insta-documenting head-on.
SLOMO (Slow To Miss Out): You’ve imposed a ban on Twitter the night something major breaks or you’re the last one to hear about the fun over the weekend, and everyone else has been talking about it for hours. Remember, tomorrow is another day.
MOMO (Mystery Of Missing Out): This is the suspicion that you are missing out on events not even documented on social media (often because the people at them are too busy experiencing the actual experience as we should all be doing). Thus followed by a feeling of panic because you can’t actually tell if you’re missing out thanks to say, a dead phone battery. If it comes down to the fact that you feel bothered by what social event is left off Instagram, it’s time to start logging out of your account and expanding your social circle
Even if you feel any of these now and again, the important thing is to focus on your happiness and fulfilling social life. Whatever that may be.