reality distortion field
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.52 in modern English
30
Scrabble Score
22
Letters
7
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The persuasive ability of a leader or entrepreneur, especially in misleading or convincing others in order to promote a product or service.
noun
An environment which alters one's perception of reality.
Example Sentences
- "I fell silent under her stony glare. I tried to keep going, but I couldn't. Blight had the opposite of a reality distortion field. A reality assertion field."
- "Small lies are essential. They create your reality distortion field. They are a necessary part of being an entrepreneur. But if you start believing your own hype, you won't survive."
- "Mr. Jobs used his famous reality distortion field to bend the news media and investors and everyone else to his will."
- "By propagating a "reality distortion field"—that is, mesmerizing potential employees, investors, and strategic partners so they focus on a startup's world-changing potential rather than on its real-world risks—overconfident and charismatic founders in particular are able to persuade people to commit resources under terms favorable to their new venture."
- "At present we sometimes experience what can be interpreted as a "reality distortion field" built upon arguments that have been developed by the innovators and early adopters within the sustainability movement."
- "If you're on social media at all, and follow many news sources, you're bombarded with stories of other people's successes […] This generates a "Reality Distortion Field" in which everyone else appears to experience 95% success and 5% struggle."
Etymology
In the idiomatic sense, coined by software developer Bud Tribble at Apple Computer in 1981, to describe company co-founder Steve Jobs' charisma and its effects on the developers working on the Mac project: "Steve has a reality distortion field. […] In his presence, reality is malleable. He can convince anyone of practically anything." The term was borrowed from the 1966 Star Trek episode "The Menagerie", in which the humanoid Talosians are able to create lifelike illusions using such fields.