granfalloon

Meanings

1. A group of two or more people who imagine or are manipulated to believe they share a connection based on some circumstance of little or no real significance.

Etymology

Coined by American writer Kurt Vonnegut in 1963, in the novel Cat's Cradle, in which Vonnegut described the term as referencing a false karass, or "a proud and meaningless association of human beings"; later adopted by market researchers and social scientists.