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community weblog
The "tears of things"
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of new words for emotions. Its mission is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being—all the aches, demons, vibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the background of everyday life.
posted by chavenet on Jun 08, 2026 at 1:17 AM
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I really want something kind of like this - I work in mental health, and one of the most important things we can do in recovery work is to put words to emotions. What the website appeared to be at first glance was a way for people to struggle with this by writing about how they feel, and stretching their conceptions of their feelings to expand how they see the world and themselves. I have worked with groups of people at this very thing, and talked about the concepts of our existence that came out of that struggle; it is very personal to each of us.
And then I saw the banner - "Generate your own words using AI - give your sorrows a voice!"
The book (if not AI generated) looks fascinating. I would want an assurance that AI has nothing to do whatsoever with that book before I would buy it. To be real about it, AI sometimes makes things up out of thin air at random, yet is sold by the makers as a sort of infallible oracle (never mind the disclaimers in parentheses, no pun intended). My head is complicated enough with the world as it is, why do I want anything like that anywhere near me?
This is very important work for folks like me, and the idea that some machine prone to random hallucinations of prose might be part of the process of writing it feels unsafe to me. I work with people who have real hallucinations; real misconceptions and misinterpretations about the world on a very fundamental level. I have at times been one of those myself. I found safety in the real and in the acceptance of it. A source that might be in parts a construction of words that comes from a conception of the world that is not real but sells itself as being real is not something I feel safe around.
posted by cybrcamper at 5:07 AM
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I am not an expert, but the book was published 5 years ago and was the published rendtion of work that had been building on the website for years. If I am not mistaken the first publicly available AI was CHATGPT in 2022. So pretty unlikely book was informed by AI. I have the book, and enjoy opening it every now and again. My favorite word therein is klexos.
posted by jcworth at 5:31 AM
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"Site Credits
Site by Qontour
Site Built on Webflow
Sorrows App by Jaryah
App built on Replit
Image gen by dall-e 2
Text Gen by GPT-4"
What a strange choice to make. I actually question a bit whether this is really affiliated with the author (his original tumblr is still available at https://dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/). it does seems to cite him everywhere and link to his book, but idk who actually commissioned this site. I wouldn't put it past an AI-first agency to just do it on their own initiative.
posted by BungaDunga at 5:50 AM
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or something his publisher cooked up?
posted by BungaDunga at 5:52 AM
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The book is fantastic and some of the concepts - anemoia, for example, a profound and bittersweet longing for a time you didn't experience; a take on nostalgia for hauntological times outside your experience but in your feels - have a long tail in broader culture now. Can't comment on the website, but definitely would recommend the richness and thought of the book.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:05 AM
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I have copy of the book too, it's an interesting curiosity, but I hadn't thought about it in the context cybrcamper brings up. I can't specifically speak to its provenance re: LLM usage, but I don't recall it having the usual hallmarks we now associate with LLMs, though I'd have to dig it out of storage to thumb through it again in that light.
IIRC, it does have some words in it that were already words, and not ones I thought were particularly obscure, but it's been a couple years since I read it. Some of the ones on the website are just turns of phrase, like "incidental contact high" - that's not a new, obscure word. "Skidding" is there on the site. It's defined as "the practice of making offhand comments that sound sarcastic but are actually sincere and deeply felt" - but if you used it that way, for instance: "Yeah, I'm skidding for reals yo" I'm pretty sure people would generally infer from context that you felt out of control, as a vehicle might be on a slick surface. You know, the actual meaning of the actual word. Besides, "kidding on the square" was right there for anyone to use.
As a person who like language a lot, but not formally trained or educated as a linguist, I also like to make words up. It's cool in that respect. The images on the website (on preview, apparently LLM-generated and it shows) give me "A Softer World" but from Temu vibes.
posted by Seven Hundred Angry Bees at 6:42 AM
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Definitely remember seeing this on YouTube years ago - the page is 11 years old, and mentions the book. I don't see anything about AI on the page, and I agree it began before AI could do this, though I'm not sure that answers anyone's question.
Sonder - this is one of the one's I remember.
sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
Narrated, written, directed, edited and coined by John Koenig.
posted by Glinn at 6:43 AM
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I can virtually guarantee this site is unofficial and has no affiliation with the book's author or publisher. Qontour, the AI marketing agency that made it, lists it in their portfolio with a telling phrase: "The site gives fans (like us) one place to find everything."
They're just fans! That makes it totally okay for a company to register a domain with a book's title and copy whole chapters and definitions out of the book verbatim, while legitimately causing confusion over authorship, and then add Amazon affiliate links to profit off it.
Pretty ballsy for them to credit "Dictionary Content © John Koenig" at the bottom. The entire thing is copyright infringement.
I emailed Koenig to confirm, but I don't expect to hear back. It doesn't seem like he's been active online for years.
posted by waxpancake at 7:09 AM
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To be real about it, AI sometimes makes things up out of thin air at random, yet is sold by the makers as a sort of infallible oracle (never mind the disclaimers in parentheses, no pun intended).
Pay no attention to the disclaimers behind the parentheses!
I think to be clear, it's sold by the *marketers* and *hucksters* that way. "A. I." Is definitely the blockchain of the 20's. It's amazing that a movie from nearly a hundred years ago remains so relevant today that I can confidently expect at least five percent of MF readers to see what I did there.
Also, boo on the "agency" that stole the material.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 7:33 AM
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Came here to also mention anemoia, "nostalgia for a time you've never known". This word has been very helpful for me as a label for a feeling my partner has when watching gay teen shows like Heartstopper. He didn't come out until in his mid 20s and feels like he missed out.
Anemoia is passing into regular usage. Here's a wikitionary entry. I first encountered it in The Economist, which asserts Psychologists call such yearning "anemoia". Here's a whole BBC article, and a Psychology Today blog post, there's lots of other occurrences online too. Not bad for a word someone made up 13 years ago.
Don't love the new site confusing things, particularly if AI and submissions from randos is muddling what was an individual creative project. Their entry for anemoia is directly lifted from the book. So either the book is deliberately online now or this is shitty copyright infringement. FWIW the Amazon affiliate code the new site uses is promptdigital-20, the former name of Qontour. I asked them about it on Nazi Twitter but don't expect a reply.
posted by Nelson at 7:48 AM
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I spotted an entry in my native language and I certainly hope the book is not whatever this is supposed to trying be as it managed to be utter horseshit. So I'm not trusting this to get anything right.
posted by phax at 8:26 AM
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Just got back an official answer from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows' author John Koenig, via email. He had nothing to do with it.
posted by waxpancake at 8:30 AM
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Waxpancake, thanks for writing John Koenig! I think that reply sets me at ease, and I'll order a copy. Just not through that website...
I think it'll be something akin to what Oblique Strategies does for me - something I can use to shake up my mind a bit now and then; something to expand my consciousness a bit.
posted by cybrcamper at 8:54 AM
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The site even ganks the book cover art (also, I believe, created by Koenig).
posted by BungaDunga at 9:51 AM
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fun fact: putting "copyright $AUTHOR" on your stolen copy of the work just demonstrates willfulness and doesn't mitigate infringement, it's exactly the same as people writing NO COPYRIGHT INTENDED, I DID NOT MAKE THIS on their reuploads
posted by BungaDunga at 9:53 AM
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anyway while we're all here, is there a word for that feeling when you dig up an old family photo that isn't quite nostalgia, and can be quite negative, even if it's not really regret or yearning either?
posted by BungaDunga at 9:57 AM
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Just got back an official answer from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows' author John Koenig, via email. He had nothing to do with it.
Did you invite him to Metafilter? Maybe we can waive the fee
posted by Glinn at 10:34 AM
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I'd like to request that the mods delete this post as it is clearly an example of IP theft. I've flagged the post.
posted by tclark at 10:56 AM
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[I contacted the OP to amend the post instead of deleting it. ]
posted by loup at 11:22 AM
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And a previously?
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:36 AM
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[Edited the original link so that it points to https://dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/]
posted by loup at 12:00 PM
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Probably worth dropping a note to Koenig's publisher if you're up for it, waxpancake (and anyone else). The publisher's rights are also implicated here, and they have more money for lawyers.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:07 PM
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I suggested that to him once he confirmed he wasn't involved. I think he can take it from here, if he wants.
posted by waxpancake at 12:38 PM
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Bought a copy today, on the strength of this conversation. The book doesn't disappoint. Not touching that A-eye-site.
posted by datawrangler at 3:06 PM
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