I don't know if the word periphobia exists or not; I have never heard nor read it. I coined it for myself some time ago to describe a pervasive modern phenomenon we all will immediately recognize.
Periphobia is both the state of, and the set of techniques used to produce, a feeling of constant, low-level fear and anxiety.
It is the latest viral marketing phishing scheme and as old as the fama of Vergil: "Fama, malum qua non aliud uelocius ullum."
But most of all it is the wild exaggerations of remote possibilities turned into middlebrow modern bogey men under the bed.
It is an attention getting device dressed up in mass media scare tactic clothes.
It is the evidence of a dying outmoded broadcast world, desperately seeking eyeballs for its Master, Advertising - eyeballs tired and jaded - the old eyeballs of the Age of Anxiety, the young eyeballs of 'come on now entertain us.'
It is a world awash in pedophiles and internet predators, awash in prime-time Hollywood Californicated designer violence.
It is a world of amber alerts, orange threat levels, def-con language; of airport strip searches of random travellers, of it could be anyone on this plane.
It is a world of drive-by-shootings on every block, drug addicts in every high school, homeless in every alley, of bulemic anorexic overweight low-esteemed inadequates filling therapists schedules. It is a world of pop-a-pill, relax, unstress, destress, detox, and side-effects may include. It is a world of killing cars, defective drugs, tainted food, and chlorinated water.
It is a world of buy, buy, buy, and then buy some more.
It is a world of the dangling conversation, the angry young man, the rebel without a cause, the Lost Generation, the unquiet dead.
It is a world of Evil and Terror - of The End Times, The Apocalypse, Armageddon, disasters and global destruction.
It is the world of the quiet young man next door who seemed so nice but always kept to himself.
It is periphobia.
Linktribution: Meredith Farmer
