Today’s blog is a continuation of terms ending in “demic” which is derived from the Greek word dêmos, meaning people of a district. Today I will discuss two of them: “Plandemic” and “Scamdemic.” Some may take offense at these words, however, this is not my intent. I am simply listing words and phrases that have come into use during the pandemic.
Dictionary.com doesn’t have a formal definition for “plandemic” but it does appear in their article “Are These COVID-19 Words The Worst To Come Out Of The Pandemic?” The opening paragraph begins with the following statement: “What a year 2020 has been – and it’s not even over yet! With any new global event, new words tend to pop up, for better or worse, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Twitter user @Lemonhausen offered up plandemic as his “worst coinage” of 2020. The coinage plandemic, a blend of plan and pandemic, took off with the emergence of a conspiracy theory video that claimed COVID-19 is a planned and pre-arranged pandemic (hence plandemic) for pharmaceutical companies to make money.” The Urban Dictionary’s definition is “a term used by stupid people who do ‘research’ by watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube.”
The term “scamdemic” appears in the Collins Dictionary as a “new word suggestion” which was submitted on August 9, 2020 and is still pending approval. The definition is “a pandemic that either does not exist or is not as serious as governments and health experts claim. Some see it as a ‘scamdemic’, ie a hoax. In this version Covid-19 does not exist at all or is no worse than a mild bout of flu. [The Economist, Sept 2020]” (AustinAllegro). Wiktionary defines the term as a”period of time where the idea of an ongoing pandemic is used to defraud the general public.” The only thing I have to say about this is the author of this blog was diagnosed last year with Covid-19 so the virus is real.
Social Media Trends as of May 17, 2022
Facebook #plandemic: temporarily hidden
Facebook #scamdemic: temporarily hidden
YouTube #scamdemic: 592 videos and 274 channels
Google Trends: plandemic briefly appeared during the week of April 26, 2020 and reached its peak during the week of May 3, 2020. The popularity of the term quickly went down to almost zero.
Google Trends: scamdemic appeared during the week of March 29, 2020 and reached its peak during the week of July 19 that year. Since then, the popularity of the term has remained constant but has mostly halved from its peak.
Sources:
99swag. “Plandemic”. The Urban Dictionary. September 17, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plandemic.
“Are These COVID-19 Words The Worst To Come Out Of The Pandemic?” Dictionary.com. September 21, 2020. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/worst-covid-19-words/.
AustinAllegro. “Scamdemic.” Collins Dictionary. August 9, 2020. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/submission/22807/scamdemic.
“Scamdemic”. Wiktionary. April 24, 2020. URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scamdemic.