Though the term is a vulgarism originating either with the imageboards where the pictures were initially posted or Reddit, mainstream media outlets soon adopted the term themselves, such as the BBC. 'The Fappening' is a jocular portmanteau coined by combining the words ' fap', an internet slang term for masturbation, and the title of the 2008 film The Happening. The leak also prompted increased concern from analysts surrounding the privacy and security of cloud computing services such as iCloud-with a particular emphasis on their use to store sensitive, private information. Critics argued the leak was a major invasion of privacy for the photos' subjects, while some of the alleged subjects denied the images' authenticity. The incident was met with varied reactions from the media and fellow celebrities. Apple claimed in a press release that access was gained via spear phishing attacks. The images were initially believed to have been obtained via a breach of Apple's cloud services suite iCloud, or a security issue in the iCloud API which allowed them to make unlimited attempts at guessing victims' passwords. The leak has been popularly dubbed ' The Fappening' and also ' Celebgate'. On August 31, 2014, a collection of nearly five hundred private pictures of various celebrities, mostly women, with many containing nudity, were posted on the imageboard 4chan, and swiftly disseminated by other users on websites and social networks such as Imgur and Reddit.

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