#behaviors and effects. just lies/jokes/etc don't destabilize reality; actual full on gaslighting does; and there's in betweens where maybe | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

frogeyedape · 2 years ago

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*intent to gaslight is necessary but not sufficient for dishonesty to qualify as gaslighting. The victim must actually doubt their ability to judge reality. If both conditions are true, intent to gaslight and victim experiences effects of gaslighting, then gaslighting has occurred

I just saw someone say the words "jokingly gaslight" this might be a good time to reintroduce the internet to the terms "lying" or perhaps "pranking" or even just "joking" on it's own

#impact on the victim/target matters #you could call intent to gaslight that fails to rock the target's confidence in their perception of reality as attempted/failed gaslighting #and hey someone could be impacted by a 'joke' that was legit intended to be funny by doubting their judgment of reality--that's a joke that #'lands badly' or makes the target feel like they've been gaslit even if that wasn't the intent #factoring in both perpetrator intent and victim impact will give a clearer overall picture of what happened #take smooth shark as an example - as long as people KNOW it's a joke it's silly and funny. but people genuinely ask if it's true-and people #keep up the 'joke'-and in some cases it's still actually a joke albeit a mean one with the person refusing to stop arguing for the truth of #rough sharks being the butt--but there are people for whom this genuinely destabilizes their judgment of reality #it's more complicated than just 'intended to be funny' vs 'intended to compromise belief in sense of reality'#it could be useful to stop treating various lies as blavk vs white it's gaslighting vs it's not and think of a spectrum of gaslighty #behaviors and effects. just lies/jokes/etc don't destabilize reality; actual full on gaslighting does; and there's in betweens where maybe #gaslighting is attempted but fails or someone not trying to gaslight accidentally causes an effect of gaslighting #to be clear 'effect of gaslighting' doesn't mean only complete full on haslighting can have that effect. there can be multiple causes that #produce the same effects

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