Foafiness, which derives from friend of a friend, is the condition of knowing a lot about someone even though you’ve never actually met, such as when you feel like you know a friend’s spouse or children solely because you’ve read so much about them on Facebook. But is there a term for “experiential foafiness,” when you feel like you’ve visited someplace but then realize you’ve only read about it or seen it in a video? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Experiential Foafiness”
Grant, do you know this exhibit at LACMA, the L.A. County Museum of Art, called the Rain Room?
It’s really, really popular, and you go into this room, and it looks like it’s raining in there, but any place a person goes and walks around, they don’t get rained on?
No, I don’t know that room.
They turned on the lights purple after Prince died to honor him.
Well, the reason I asked you and the reason I asked you that way was I was talking with a friend the other day.
And I said, oh, have you been to the rain room?
And she said, oh, yeah, yeah, I’ve been to the rain room.
And then she realized, oh, wait, no, I haven’t.
I’ve only seen it online.
And we both realized that we had this sense of having been there without actually going there.
And I was thinking about the conversation as a result that you and I had years ago about fofiness.
Do you remember this?
Friend of a friend?
Yes.
Yes.
When we see people on Facebook who aren’t necessarily our friends, like maybe the children or the dates or the spouses of the people who are our friends, but we feel like we know them and we feel like we know what’s going on in their lives because we’ve seen our friends’ Facebook feed.
And so I was thinking there ought to be a word for experiential fofiness.
Something like that.
You know, something where you feel like you’ve had the experience, but you haven’t really.
Yeah, I had an embarrassing moment a few years ago where there’s a woman who is a friend of like, I have like 20 or 30 friends in common with her on Facebook.
She’s like involved in politics one way or the other.
And then I saw her in the park.
There’s an event, a gathering of some kind.
And I greeted her like somebody that I really knew.
And she gave me, like, laser eyes.
Like, the, like, how is this man threatening me?
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Oh, because I was too into it.
Isn’t that weird?
Yeah, it was weird.
But I felt like, you know, like, sorry about the dog.
Yeah, the new place looks great.
You know, I didn’t say that, but that’s what I was feeling inside.
Kind of like, all this stuff I know about her.
Like, the new place looks great.
Oh, yeah.
You know, sorry about the car trouble.
Whatever.
This kind of stuff that you see on Facebook.
That’s hilarious.
Yeah.
So she was a fof.
A fof.
A friend of a friend.
So weird.
Well, if you have a word for experiential fofiness, let us know what it is, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
