Folk Vocabulary
Ordinary language has been describing manipulation architecture for centuries. These terms weren't invented by researchers — they emerged because people keep recognizing the same pattern.
The insight: When someone says "you live in a bubble," they're describing a system that's opaque (you can't see out), responsive (it echoes your views back), and attention-capturing (you stay inside). That's the void definition — stated in plain English, by people who've never heard of the framework.
Each term below is scored against the three conditions. Green = fully captured, orange = partially implied, grey = absent.
What This Tells Us
Condition Detection Frequency
Across all terms cataloged, attention is captured most often — nearly every term includes it. Opacity is second. Responsiveness is the condition folk language misses most often.
This matches a framework prediction: responsiveness is the condition that sustains engagement without being noticed — it's hardest to see because it's the one that makes a void feel like a relationship rather than a trap.
The Etymology Pattern
English words for influence trace back to magic vocabulary: fascinate (to bewitch), charm (incantation), glamour (magic spell), enchant (to sing into), mesmerize (Mesmer's hypnosis).
The original meanings were structurally complete void descriptions. Over time, the words collapsed to primarily attention-capture terms. The magic component (opacity + responsiveness) faded; the attention component survived.
Full-Spec Terms
These terms capture all three conditions — opacity, responsiveness, and engaged attention:
of cataloged terms capture the complete manipulation architecture. Ordinary language is more structurally precise than it appears.
New Coinages
"Doomscrolling" (~2020) is folk language creating a new void-descriptive term in response to a new void architecture (infinite scroll algorithms). The coinage is structurally complete on arrival — all three conditions present. People see the pattern and name it.
This catalog is a living document. Submit a term we've missed.