Not the nod we deserve...

[AchtungNight]

Time to make a certain season one Buffy episode about online romance demons mandatory viewing for kids of that age.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yes, because social media platforms haven’t been around as long as Literotica.

I’m not remotely convinced that this portmanteau has been coined independently multiple times.

kleenex with a small K existed before Kleenex, but

No, there wasn't even such a thing as paper facial tissuesbefore Kleenex was marketed as a product under that trademarked name.

I see people on social media all the time saying things like "I posted some literotica on Reddit."

 

[NotWise]

I asked Gemini "When did the word 'Literotica' appear?"

"It's likely that the word gained prominence with the rise of online platforms dedicated to erotic literature, with the website [suspicious link removed], founded 1998, being a significant factor in its widespread use."

 

[SimonDoom]

No, there wasn't even such a thing as paper facial tissuesbefore Kleenex was marketed as a product under that trademarked name.

I see people on social media all the time saying things like "I posted some literotica on Reddit."

I'm not aware of this use of "literotica." I cannot recall EVER having seen it used as a generic term to describe online erotica. I don't dispute what you've seen, but I haven't seen it myself.

If you do a Google search for the term, all the top links are to the site.

There's a phenomenon in trademark law called "genericide." It's when a trademark term gets used so often to describe the general product rather than a specific brand of the product that it loses its trademark distinction. A good example is the term "escalator." Other examples are aspirin, trampoline, and thermos.

Although "Kleenex" is often used by people to describe facial tissue generally, it remains a registered trademark. Kimberly-Clark is careful to market it as a brand and to describe the product itself as "facial tissue."

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm not aware of this use of "literotica." I cannot recall EVER having seen it used as a generic term to describe online erotica. I don't dispute what you've seen, but I haven't seen it myself.

If you do a Google search for the term, all the top links are to the site.

There's a phenomenon in trademark law called "genericide." It's when a trademark term gets used so often to describe the general product rather than a specific brand of the product that it loses its trademark distinction. A good example is the term "escalator." Other examples are aspirin, trampoline, and thermos.

Although "Kleenex" is often used by people to describe facial tissue generally, it remains a registered trademark. Kimberly-Clark is careful to market it as a brand and to describe the product itself as "facial tissue."

Just today, there was a thread on X regarding whether or not their AI program Grok can be used to write explicit material. Grok used "literotica" as a generic term, as did a number of respondents on the thread.

 

[NotWise]

I'm not aware of this use of "literotica." I cannot recall EVER having seen it used as a generic term to describe online erotica. I don't dispute what you've seen, but I haven't seen it myself.

If you do a Google search for the term, all the top links are to the site.

There's a phenomenon in trademark law called "genericide." It's when a trademark term gets used so often to describe the general product rather than a specific brand of the product that it loses its trademark distinction. A good example is the term "escalator." Other examples are aspirin, trampoline, and thermos.

Although "Kleenex" is often used by people to describe facial tissue generally, it remains a registered trademark. Kimberly-Clark is careful to market it as a brand and to describe the product itself as "facial tissue."

I found a discussion of the word 'literotica,' which is trademarked. Doesn't the existence of a trademark show that the term wasn't in common use before Literotica.com?

Their article includes this:

There’s debate over whether literotica is truly genericized. Some define literotica as the website itself, and make a distinction between the content (calling it simply “erotica”) and the site. But others use it much more generally, and there are even other erotica-based sites that refer to their content as literotica. Certainly, the Tumblr and Twitter searches for the genericized sense of the term are prolific.

Edited: I'm not sure, but the trademark may be for specific renditions of the word rather than for the word itself

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

I found a discussion of the word 'literotica,' which is trademarked. Doesn't the existence of a trademark show that the term wasn't in common use before Literotica.com?

Have you heard the compelling story of Microsoft having to rename their "SkyDrive" to "OneDrive" because someone trademarked the word "Sky"?

 

[NotWise]

Have you heard the compelling story of Microsoft having to rename their "SkyDrive" to "OneDrive" because someone trademarked the word "Sky"?

I haven't heard that. My heart bleeds for them.

 

[PrimalDual]

Everybody knows you never go full literotica. You went full literotica, man. Never go full literotica.