Thursday 29 November 2018

'-ocene' neologisms—a list

For a few years now, I've been making a list of neologisms that riff on, satirise, or offer an alternative to the much-debated 'Anthropocene.' No methodology was involved other than 'see, copy, paste,' and I've not kept track of who said what (though the more unusual ones will be easy to google, if one so desires).

I previously posted a much shorter version of this list in my review of Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz's The Shock of the Anthropocene. However, it has since grown considerably:

Anthropocene
Capitalocene
Eurocene 
Technocene
Anglocene
Metropocene 
Cthulhucene
Plantationocene
Gynocene
Manthropocene
Misanthropocene
Anthrobscene
Sociocene
Homogenocene
Econocene
Aerocene 
Growthocene
Palaeoanthropocene
Thermocene
Thanatocene
Phagocene
Phronocene
Agnotocene
Polemocene
Soterocene
Plutocene
Whiteocene
Euclidocene
Plastocene
Trumpocene
Eremocene
Plutocene
Urbicene
Necrocene
Simulocene
Mediacene
Molysmoscene
Cosmopolocene
Alanthropocene
Neganthropocene
Narcisscene
Christocene
Hellocene

The above were proffered by their various authors with greater or lesser degrees of seriousness. There are undoubtedly more out there, particularly as terms of mockery. Indeed, just one recent Twitter thread gives us:

Smellocene
Jellocene
Mellowcene
Crapocene
Curmudgocene

Beyond this, many have played on the buzzword in question without using the '-ocene' suffix as such. For example:

Anthropo-scene
Anthroposeen
Anthropo-not-seen
Anthrobscene
Anthro-obscene

Then, there are other qualifiers such as the 'good' Anthropocene, 'early' Anthropocene, and so on.

For what it's worth, I do agree with its many critics that 'Anthropocene' is a terrible word, and some of the above would have been a better choice. However, it seems that we are stuck with it (the academic propensity for entrepreneurial neologism notwithstanding).

Feel free to inform me of any that I missed.

______

Addendum, 07/12/2018:

Simon Lewis adds:

Another author asks "why we don’t find ourselves in a Chimpocene or a Papiocene but in the Anthropocene."