Yes, I take it as my personal mission to keep all of you informed about the new slang out there. LOL, just kidding, but as a writer, I do believe it is important to keep up, especially if I plan on writing contemporary romance. So, while this new term that I read about might not make it into my books, I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with you. Mogging, or being mogged, means to outshine or outdo others. Apparently, it’s everywhere, so I must be living under a rock because I sure hadn’t heard this before I read the article. Let’s dig a little deeper into mogging.

Mogging originated from the manosphere. That I’ve heard of, but no wonder I hadn’t heard of mogging. Although I might know what the manosphere is, I stay far away from that toxic crap. But no wonder they would dream up a word for outdoing or outshining others.
It began as a verb derived from the acronym “Amog” (alpha male of the group). Another term I’ve never heard of…big surprise.
Surprisingly, the term is not just used by men (or manchildren). Alysa Liu, the famous figure skater, talked about mogging in an interview and shared that her main strategy when competing was “to mog.”
A derivative of mogging is the walk-mog, which means overtaking people on the street, and this is most definitely used by young women.
Unfortunately, many new terms come from the manosphere because this hyper-competitive, hyper-individualist, aggressively selfish behavior is now mainstream. Our dear president has made it all fashionable. The manosphere is simply giving us terminology for this destructive societal behavior that is quickly becoming the norm. It is sad that the younger generation of women is picking up these terms.
It’s not just me who thinks this is frightening. Dr Emily Sehmer, an NHS child and adolescent psychiatrist, states that wanting to mog someone is “kind of mean, isn’t it?” Yes, Dr. Sehmer, it is. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like a little healthy competition. My pal, Ali Spooner and I engage in it all the time, but that competition is intended to push us to be our best selves, not to outshine one another. It’s meant to support and uplift one another. Therein lies the difference.

So, as I said before, I won’t be incorporating these new terms thought up by the manosphere because, frankly, they would make my characters too unlikeable…Unless I have the villain using the term. Hmmm, now there’s a thought. I’m finally writing a new book now, with the working title, Blind Faith, thanks to a suggestion from another great writer from Affinity, Del Robertson. Too bad there aren’t any twenty-something male villains to provide the perfect opportunity to use the word! I just did an online TikTok interview yesterday with Sapphic Teas and Tales, so I can keep up with the times…although figuring out how to join Emily was very challenging. Check her out, she’s doing great things for Sapphic Fiction: https://www.tiktok.com/@janusdrygoods. In the interview, we talked quite a bit about my latest novel, A Moment in Time. She loved it, thank goodness. As always, click the links below to check out my books, including a link for getting my latest novel.