FOMO is one of the latest examples of the way electronic communication, and especially online discourse, have raised the profile of acronyms and initialisms in everyday language. It remains to be seen whether this acronym will be a flash in the pan, like for example WILF, which popped up three or four years ago but now seems to have fallen out of the limelight, or stay the course, like LOL and OMG for example, which seem to be retaining popularity and making a more enduring impression on the language. FOMO certainly seems to have attracted the attention of some linguists in 2011, being runner-up in the American Dialect Society’s annual ‘Word of the Year’ vote (the winner was the verb occupy in its recent sense connected with public protests).