Existentialt

Existentialt is a neologism used in some contemporary philosophy and cultural studies discussions to denote a particular phenomenology of human existence under conditions of uncertainty and contingency. The term signals a focus on how individuals experience and respond to the weight of meaning in the face of change, fragility, and irreversibility. While not part of the core canon of existentialist thought, existentialt is deployed as a lens to examine how everyday life is shaped by temporality, responsibility, and the search for authenticity in modern contexts.

Origin and usage: The coinage appears in online essays, seminars, and interdisciplinary forums from the 2010s onward, lacking a single authoritative founder or school. It is often contrasted with broader existential concerns to highlight how digital mediation, social acceleration, climate precarity, and global interdependence affect lived experience. In some citations, the trailing t is used to emphasize temporality or transformation and to distinguish the term from the standard adjective existential.

Core ideas and applications: Proponents describe existentialt as emphasizing authenticity, commitment, and action under uncertainty. It is used as a heuristic in literary criticism, film and media studies, and philosophy to analyze works and phenomena that foreground decisive choices, evolving identities, and the consequences of future-oriented planning. Critics argue that existentialt can be vague or ambiguous, and that its speculative nature risks conflating established concepts such as existentialism, phenomenology, and postmodern thought.

See also: existentialism, phenomenology, authenticity, contingency.