FOMO

Meaning

1. Fear of missing out: anxiety that others are having a better experience somewhere else.
2. The pull to attend or buy something purely to avoid that feeling.

“I don’t even like parties, but the group chat gave me FOMO.”

Where it came from

Marketing strategist Dan Herman wrote the first academic paper on the phenomenon in 2000. Harvard Business School student Patrick J. McGinnis coined the acronym in a 2004 op-ed for the school paper, and social media adoption after 2006 pushed it into common use.