It is a “complex, subtle emotion that evokes feelings of comfort, serenity, and a gentle sense of floating.” It is peaceful, yet more fleeting and intangible than contentment. It can be stirred by the sight of a sunset or a quiet, melancholic album.

If you have never felt this sensation, or even heard of it, that comes as no surprise. A Reddit user named noahjeadie created it with ChatGPT, along with guidance on how to summon the feeling. With the right essential oils and a soundtrack, apparently, you too can feel like “a soft, fuzzy draped ghost floating through a lavender suburb.”

Do not scoff: researchers say terms for these “neo-emotions” are appearing online more and more, describing new dimensions and nuances of human feeling. Velvetmist was a key example in an academic journal article on the phenomenon published in July 2025. Yet most neo-emotions are not invented by emotional AI. Human beings coin them, and they reflect a major shift in how researchers understand feelings—one that emphasizes how people constantly craft new emotions in response to a changing world.

Velvetmist may have been an isolated chatbot-generated case, but it is far from unique. Sociologist Marci Cottingham, whose 2024 paper pioneered this line of research on neo-emotions, cites many other new terms in circulation. There is Black joy (Black people embracing embodied pleasure as an act of political resistance), trans euphoria (the joy of having one’s gender identity affirmed and celebrated), eco-anxiety (persistent fear of climate disaster), hyper-personalization (the surreal pressure to keep up with daily life and work under capitalism amid a global pandemic or rising fascism), and the pervasive sense of doom found in doomer (someone relentlessly pessimistic) or doomscrolling (fixating on an endless stream of bad news in a paralyzed state blending apathy and dread).

Of course, emotional vocabulary has always evolved. During the American Civil War, doctors used the secular term nostalgia—blending Greek words for “return home” and “pain”—to describe a sometimes fatal set of symptoms suffered by soldiers, a condition we would now likely label post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, nostalgia has softened and faded in meaning, becoming a gentle fondness for old cultural artifacts or vanished ways of life. People also regularly import emotional words from other cultures when they feel fitting or evocative, such as hygge (the Danish word for warm, cozy companionship) or kvell (a Yiddish term for swelling with happy pride).

Cottingham believes neo-emotions are proliferating as people spend more of their lives online. These new coinages help us connect with one another, make sense of our experiences, and drive engagement on social media. Even when a neo-emotion is just a subtle variation or combination of existing feelings, naming these emotions with extreme precision helps us reflect and bond with others. “These are potentially signals that tell us about our place in the world,” she says.

Neo-emotions are part of a paradigm shift in the science of feelings. For decades, researchers argued humans share a fixed set of roughly six basic emotions. But over the past decade, clinical psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University has become one of the world’s most cited scientists for proving the opposite. Using advanced brain imaging, and studying infants and people from relatively isolated cultures, she concluded there is no universal basic emotional palette. How we experience and name our feelings is culturally shaped. “How do you know what anger, sadness, and fear are? Someone taught you,” Barrett explains.

If no truly biologically “basic” emotions exist, it places greater focus on the social and cultural variations in how we interpret our experiences—and these interpretations can shift over time. “As a sociologist, I understand all emotions to be constructed,” Cottingham states. Like any other human-made tool, “emotions are practical resources people use to navigate the world.”

Some neo-emotions, like velvetmist, may remain mere novelties. Barrett playfully suggested chiplessness to describe the mix of hunger, frustration, and relief when you reach the bottom of a snack bag. Others, however—such as eco-anxiety and Black joy—can take on a life of their own and fuel social movements.

Reading about neo-emotions, and even creating your own (with or without chatbots), can be surprisingly beneficial. Extensive research supports the advantages of emotional granularity. Simply put: the more detailed and specific words you can use to describe your feelings—positive or negative—the better.

Researchers draw an analogy between this “emodiversity” and biodiversity or cultural diversity, arguing greater diversity enriches us overall. Studies show people with higher emotional granularity visit doctors less often, have fewer hospital stays due to illness, and are less likely to drink excessively, drive recklessly, or smoke when stressed. Many studies also prove emodiversity is a skill that can be learned at any age with practice.

Just imagine moving through that sweet, comforting future. Does the thought give you a dreamy, tingling feeling?

Are you really sure you’ve never felt velvetmist?

🌫️ What is velvetmist? A “complex, subtle emotion” linked to comfort, serenity and a light floating sensation; more fleeting and intangible than contentment. The term was created by a Reddit user with help from ChatGPT.

📱 Why neo-emotions are multiplying According to sociologist Marci Cottingham, they spread as people spend more time online. These new words give a name to unspoken experiences, strengthen human connection, and boost social media engagement—even when they describe subtle twists on familiar feelings.

🧩 The power of naming feelings precisely Research confirms the benefits of emotional granularity: the more specific your emotional vocabulary, the better. Precise language fuels self-reflection, social connection, and deeper understanding of personal experiences.

🧠 A paradigm shift in emotion science For years, scholars defended a fixed list of universal basic emotions. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work disproves this: there is no innate emotional palette. Feelings are experienced and named through cultural learning, and they evolve over time.

🌍 When new words become social power Some neo-emotions stay trivial fads, while others gain lasting meaning. Terms like eco-anxiety and Black joy validate collective experiences and strengthen social narratives and movements.