In case you’ve typed “symptoms of gorganzolosis” into a search engine, you can breathe easy. You’re not experiencing a new, cheese-related tropical illness and there’s no need for you to go to the hospital.
You have merely encountered a Reddit joke – a rather old, specialized, and enduring one.
As with many jokes on the internet, this starts with a simple case of crossed wires, which quickly develops into a community joke. However, the term has recently taken on a rather bizarre slant, with AI-generated websites scarping the term and trying to pass it off as a real illness or as a syndrome one might refer to as “meme addiction.”
This post will attempt to clarify matters. We will untangle the various strands of the word, and the cheesy reason for the word, plus the reasons for large-scale fictitious diagnoses on Reddit.
Origin of “Gorganzolosis”
In order to appreciate the “gorganzolosis” joke, you have to go to the community where it likely originated, r/Cheese.
There are many subsets of Reddit, and cheese Reddit is a rather wholesome section where cheese lovers post pictures of artisanal cheese plates and cheese boards. However, it is also a community where members provide assistance and advice to those who have made serious food choice mistakes.
A user who confessed to having unintentionally consumed an excessive quantity of blue cheese appears to have coined the term gorganzolosis (combining a misspelled gorgonzola with the medical suffix ′′–osis′′).
The Interaction of Patient Zero
While the internet archives are not the clearest, the joke tends to follow a general outline that, to my recollection, was popular before the post of someone saying, ˝I ate a block of blue cheese on accident.˝
The original poster, perhaps worried about the consequences of eating that much moldy cheese, asked what health problems they would incur. One commenter replied with deadpan seriousness, ˝You’re going to die of gorganzolosis. I’m sorry.˝
The absurdity of the answer created the humor. It mirrored the type of ridiculous and inaccurate medical advice people receive when they are concerned about their health and use the internet to diagnose themselves. Instead of providing the user with reassurance, the absurdity of the answer became the focus of the post. The user was not just gorged with cheese; they were gorged with a disease that would leave them terminally ill, and the disease was fictional.
The Next Use of Gorganzolosis (As Seen on Reddit)
As soon as it started spreading, Gorganzolosis started evolving. People effectively started creatively using the newly coined term to draw satire.
WebMD, Gorganzolosis, and Cyberchondria
The spread and development of the Gorganzolosis term satirized the phenomenon known as Cyberchondria. Gorganzolosis satirically, and soon to be coined as Gorganzolosis in a Gorganzolosis post (could be anything, arguably even a gorganzolosis less post—It could be an empty Gorganzolosis post). Cyberchondria can be identified as a condition where an individual has a mild headache, and believes the symptoms may persist to the point where she has or a “rare incurable disease”. Cyberchondria and Gorganzolosis satirically argue “You’re thinking too much with your Gorganzolosis thinking and this, the Web, is your worst source for a medical Gorganzolosis.
Automation and Gorganzolosis
The recent use of Gorganzolosis has now taken on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The term is used a lot on Reddit, and now, the term Gorganzolosis is used on Automated Content Farms. Automated Content Farms write articles for an easy profit, some even for the use of Artificial Intelligence, and these articles are based on a term Gorganzolosis to get clicks.
Currently, on many news websites, you can find some articles that, for example, say that gorganzolosis is some sort of “meme addiction” or some sort of “condition resulting from excessive scrolling”. In these articles you can find some ridiculously wrong hallucinations that seem to take the “reddit joke” far too seriously, treating it as a real sociological phenomenon.
Now the joke is that fake cheese disease is also treated by robots that write serious papers.
Why the Joke Resonates
Gorganzolosis is an example of the creative phenomenon of internet culture. In this case, we can look at the coined word as an example of internet culture that derive from three factors.
1. The Pleasure of Ridiculous “Nonsense” Words
Gorganzolosis is also a name that is quite entertaining to say. The word gorganzolosis, at least to me, sounds sort of medically authoritative, yet rare enough to sound very absurd. The word gorganzolosis fall into the same category as bamboozled and comodulated.
2. Community Gatekeeping (The Good Kind)
Insider jokes help reinforce and establish social cohesion. The feeling of being part of a group when someone mentions gorganzolosis, and you get it, makes you feel part of the in-group. It shows you’ve been lurking on Reddit long enough to recognize the community lore. It turns strangers into a community.
3. Low-Stakes Trolling
Unlike other gorganzolosis, gorganzolosis is quite a gentle form of trolling. When someone says you have a cheese disease gorganzolosis, it is a way to be mischievous, but in a non-serious way. It is helpful to lighten the mood in serious or argumentative comment threads.
Examples of the Joke in Action
If you want to spot a diagnosis in the wild, look for threads where the stakes are incredibly low.
- The Food Safety Panic: A user posts a picture of a pizza left out for two hours and asks if it’s safe.
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- The Reply: “Risky. High chance of contracting gorganzolosis.”
- The Pet Photo: A user posts a picture of a cat looking strangely at a block of cheddar.
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- The Reply: “Careful, he’s showing early symptoms of gorganzolosis.”
- The Gaming Glitch: A video game character’s face distorts due to a bug.
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- The Reply: “Sad to see gorganzolosis claiming another victim.”
A Final Diagnosis
The Internet is a place filled with false information, though rarely is it so satisfying.
Gorganzolosis is not an actual medical condition; it is not a psychological disorder caused by memes. It reflects the Internet’s gifted hand in extracting a small error or an amusing comment and crafting it into years of lore.
So, next time you find yourself at 3 in the morning, consuming a whole wheel of brie and questioning whether you will live through the night, you will be okay. Unless of course, gorganzolosis takes you first.
