A few days ago, I was chatting to a friend. She said she’s got “thanatophobia.” I looked it up. It means a fear of death.
Then today, I was reading through YouTube comments. “If you don’t like the sound of people whistling,” wrote one of the commenters, “you’ve probably got misophonia.”
I looked that up, too. It’s when a sound irritates you more than it should.
Here’s a third affliction I only just found out about:
Cyberchondria. That’s the condition when you latch on to a newfangled term, found on the Internet, which gives a Greek name to symptoms of being alive.
But let’s change tack for a second.
A while back, copywriter Roy Furr wrote that there are only three types of big ideas for sales letters:
1. Solve an urgent problem
2. Present a 10x opportunity
3. Make an imminent prediction
So let me make an imminent prediction for you:
Rates of cyberchondria will rise dramatically over the next year. Society will become more atomized, isolated, and socially distanced. People will suffer as a result. And they will want answers.
So if you want a 10x opportunity, simply keep an eye out. New terms will pop up to describe bad feelings you’ve sensed but never articulated. These new terms — and the urgent problems behind them — could be your new big idea.
As marketer Rich Schefren says over and over, “That which is most personal, is most general.” And if it has a scientific-sounding name, that certainly helps.
Do you have unexplained symptoms of malaise, boredom, or irritability? I don’t know the cause. But I might have a cure: Click here and subscribe to my daily email newsletter.