Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a relatively new term in our vocabulary, but fear is as old as man itself. A few millennia ago, when man was a hunter-gatherer, ‘FOMO’ must have driven him to always remain with the pack so that he does not miss out on the ‘prized’ hunt or the fresh fruit. While man has evolved with time, this fear continued to live within him and it drove him to remain in organised societies and served his well-being. As long as the fear was natural and the driving force of this fear was the well-being of man, things remained pretty much normal. This fear started taking a different form and its impact changed dramatically when the fear was not natural but created.

It was in the middle of the 17th century that King Louis XIV at Versailles introduced the idea of organised fashion. If you had to remain in the high society, it was important for you to be in-vogue. If not, you were not deemed fit to be in the high society. This is probably the first example of organised and orchestrated FOMO. It was an example of royalty deciding what’s ‘IN’ and what’s ‘Trending’ in the 1900’s. This leads us to reason with the numerous examples of how corporations and products were marketed to us and played on our emotions and psychology.