{"id":70212,"date":"2025-08-15T12:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70212\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:36:09","slug":"how-social-media-algorithms-are-changing-the-way-people-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/70212\/","title":{"rendered":"How Social Media Algorithms Are Changing the Way People Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every time a new slang word gets coined on the Internet, linguist Adam Aleksic is thrilled. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely good for me in that I stay in business,\u201d says Aleksic, who studies the origins of words and the changes they undergo through time, particularly online. As the \u201cEtymology Nerd<\/a>,\u201d Aleksic posts videos that document this ever changing language of Internet culture<\/a>, including \u201cbrain rot memes<\/a>\u201d such as \u201cSkibidi Toilet\u201d and the mainstreaming of incel slang such as \u201cblackpilled\u201d and \u201clooksmaxxing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, in his book Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, Aleksic explores the forces shaping our language<\/a> in the age of algorithmic-driven social media. \u201cAlgospeak\u201d refers to the words used to get around censorship imposed by the algorithms that determine what ends up on our feeds\u2014for example, \u201ckill\u201d has become \u201cunalive\u201d in many online (and even offline) spaces. You can see the impact of this algorithmic infrastructure in how many of these new linguistic trends follow similar patterns. \u201cIn many ways, [these are] the same patterns that humans have always relied on to communicate with one another but shaped uniquely by this new medium and its constraints and its advantages,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

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Language changes can trigger cultural angst. Some of that could stem from fear of obsolescence. For instance, in talking to Aleksic, I learned that the word \u201cbop\u201d no longer means a catchy song in many mainstream parts of the Internet and has instead come to mean a promiscuous woman or OnlyFans creator. This filled me with an inexplicable dread. But linguistic change is inevitable, even if it is now happening at what feels like a breakneck pace. What should we make of it?<\/p>\n

To try to wrap my head around this question, I spoke with Aleksic about the algorithmic forces shaping how we speak\u2014some new and some as old as language itself.<\/p>\n

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]<\/p>\n

How would you describe your linguistic upbringing on the Internet? <\/p>\n

My first experience with the Internet was really Reddit. [During my] sophomore year of high school, I started this etymology blog, and I would post a word origin a day. And I stumbled on the subreddit r\/etymology, and that was where I started dabbling and started posting on some other subreddits. I made maps and made infographics, and they would do well. That was my first experience learning how to go viral on the Internet.<\/p>\n

I do remember early slang words and being fascinated by them. And this was all from Vine: \u201con fleek\u201d or \u201cbae\u201d or \u201cfam.\u201d And there were the 4chan words bleeding into Reddit, words like \u201cpilled\u201d and \u201cmaxxing,\u201d before it started really leaking to the mainstream.<\/p>\n

My crucible was definitely Tumblr. A meme that started there was \u201cthe mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,\u201d and I\u2019ve become totally fascinated by it because I recently learned that Scientific American coined the metaphor in 1957<\/a>. Why do you think that phrase became such a popular meme?<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s a bunch of stock phrases that are humorous to people because of their overrepresentation in our culture. And [\u201cthe mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell\u201d] is funny because obviously it showed up in all these early documentaries, and we start making jokes parodying the fact that it\u2019s so present. Honestly, that\u2019s what brain rot is, too\u2014right now there\u2019s \u201cDubai chocolate Labubu Crumbl cookie,\u201d and that\u2019s funny because it\u2019s parroting these overrepresented things in our culture. With \u201cmitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,\u201d this was before we had the viral algorithmic feeds bringing us the same recommended content over and over again. So what would we parody? We\u2019d parody mass culture, and we still are in many ways. That is a time-honored linguistic process.<\/p>\n

In the case of \u201cmitochondria is the power to the cell,\u201d it\u2019s funny to us, [similar to other] stock phrases. I don\u2019t know if you ever took the FitnessGram PACER Test?<\/p>\n

Absolutely, that was that miserable running test in gym class.<\/p>\n

Exactly. Anybody growing up in our age group encountered that, and I\u2019ve seen FitnessGram PACER Test memes on the Internet as well. And it seems niche, like this small detail from our childhoods, and yet it\u2019s calling back to this niche shared experience. Memes call attention to shared realities. They make you feel like you\u2019re part of an in-group. And at the end of the day, it\u2019s the feeling of being in a group that defines how we interact with each other as humans. It\u2019s calling attention to this very specific thing we all had together. The best parts of the Internet are when you feel that collective effervescence because that\u2019s what drives us as humans, this feeling of connection to other people.<\/p>\n

Last year the Oxford English Dictionary\u2019s publisher Oxford University Press named \u201cbrain rot\u201d its word of the year<\/a>. In your book, you take some issue with the way people have come to talk about terms like \u201cSkibidi Toilet,\u201d \u201csigma\u201d and \u201cRizzler\u201d as if they are literally rotting our brain. Can you explain why you don\u2019t like that outlook?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s very important to separate language and culture here. Words don\u2019t rot your brain. I think there\u2019s the inclination to cast other cultural concerns onto the words that are associated with cultural phenomena [we\u2019re worried about]. \u201cSkibidi\u201d is associated with the Skibidi Toilet YouTube short series, which is seen as brain rot because it plays into that idea of algorithmic feeds and shattered attention spans and declining literacy rates. And we take those negative feelings and cast those aspersions onto the idea of Skibidi Toilet, which alone, by itself, is a piece of cinema\u2014it is! It\u2019s just what we culturally perceive as \u201chigh art versus low art.\u201d Look at pop art: it plays with that boundary between what is low art and what is high art. I think if Andy Warhol were around today, he would be making Skibidi Toilet paintings.<\/p>\n

But the image of a toilet is not neurologically bad for you any more than the word skibidi is bad for you. We have these other cultural concerns that we port over to this genre of comedy that we call brain rot, however. I think the Oxford English Dictionary, when they did the word of the year, got it mostly wrong\u2014because, yes, \u201cbrain rot\u201d does refer to this feeling of neurological damage caused by the Internet, but more people use it to describe this comedic meme, this aesthetic of nonsensical repetition, calling back to the idea of rotting your brain.<\/p>\n

The conversation about algorithmic media and how good or bad it is for society is a separate and important conversation to have. But if I\u2019m talking about language, I really want to try to separate that and say, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not wrong that your middle schooler is saying \u2018skibidi.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that really sticks out about the current age of the Internet is how fast words become popular and then fall out of favor\u2014on the order of days and weeks instead of months. What do you think the consequences might be of this breakneck pace?<\/p>\n

Linguistically, it is just really fun that we have new words, new ways for humans to express themselves. This is fun to study for me. Culturally, I am a little concerned\u2014Harold Innis, in his book The Bias of Communication, [talks about] two types of communication, space-biased and time-biased. Time-biased will last longer across time, and space-biased will just take up a lot of space but turn over quickly. That\u2019s like a book versus a news cycle: A book will stay longer, but a news cycle will reach more people. Viral communication reaches a lot of people really quickly, but it doesn\u2019t last long, unlike an oral tradition.<\/p>\n

These time-biased forms of media are ritualistic. They\u2019re meant to build community. The root of the word communication comes from the same root as community because building community was the original purpose. And I worry about the surplus of this space-biased communication, which is just filling up [space]\u2014I mean the word \u201ccontent\u201d literally means something that just fills up space. I\u2019m worried that that means we have less connection to one another, from a media studies and cultural theory angle.<\/p>\n

You highlight the problem of online \u201ccontext collapse,\u201d in which posts escape their original context. The result is that we never know who we\u2019re talking to or who is talking to us. Can you talk a bit about how this ends up impacting language?<\/p>\n

Context collapse means you perceive something in a new context, and you don\u2019t know where it came from originally. Practically, that means you lose the power that those words originally had. Let\u2019s look at African American English. A lot of words that we use today\u2014slay, serve, queen, ate, yass, bet\u2014came from the ballroom scene in New York City in the 1980s, which was this queer, Black, Latino space. [That physical space had] a regulatory function. If you were a white girl saying \u201cslay\u201d in the 1980s [in a ball house], people would look at you funny. Probably, you wouldn\u2019t have even been there.<\/p>\n

But on social media, even if people feel like they\u2019re speaking to one audience, an algorithm is going to intercept that and distribute it to another audience because that\u2019ll make more money. And that\u2019s where the context collapses. Now you\u2019re a white girl looking at [a TikTok video of] a mother in a ball house saying the word \u201cslay,\u201d and you feel like, \u201cOh, this person is talking to me; it\u2019s on my For You page.\u201d And then you now make a video saying \u201cslay,\u201d which is viewed by other white girls. Then nobody even knows that it came from the ballroom scene.<\/p>\n

These algorithms shape so much of our lives in a way that is both thrilling and uncomfortable. How do you see people trying to resist or shape the influence of social media algorithms?<\/p>\n

This is how most people are consuming information, and it\u2019s also the best way to reach people. Whether you\u2019re on social media or not, you\u2019re still in a caf\u00e9 or a bar, and you hear a Sabrina Carpenter song that got popular because of [social media] algorithms. The language that you end up adopting, or that your kids end up adopting, is still going to be coming from [an online platform\u2019s] algorithm, whether you like it or not. You can\u2019t just bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

But also, it\u2019s valid to be upset about some of the things the algorithm is doing. It\u2019s valid to be concerned how these social media platforms are trying to commodify our attention so they can sell our data and sell us more ads. It\u2019s a human tendency to resist, to come up with creative [outlets] when things feel forced on us. You see that with how we avoid censorship online. You see that with how our meme genres like brain rot poke fun at algorithmic oversaturation. A lot of our expression is a subtle resistance because language is never just one thing at a time.<\/p>\n

Reading your book, I felt like I swung back and forth between two emotions: immense fondness for Internet culture and the ways it allows human creativity to shine and immense discomfort and disdain with the algorithmic, profit-driven structure it exists within. How do you reconcile those feelings?<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s central to interacting with the Internet, right? It\u2019s the best way to be tapped into the culture, and I think it\u2019s our moral duty to responsibly interact with culture and be aware of how the algorithm [is] shaping us. So I think it\u2019s okay to interact with the algorithm responsibly. Yeah, I doomscroll a little bit, but then I set my own boundaries\u2014I set my phone in another room when I go to bed, and I read a little bit. That\u2019s a really good boundary for me.<\/p>\n

But I think, culturally, we\u2019re still going to be grappling with this for a while. [Science communicator] Hank Green<\/a> put it well when he called this<\/a> a \u201cGutenberg-level<\/a>\u201d shift. We are experiencing a revolution in the media we\u2019re consuming, and we don\u2019t even know [the answers to key questions]: How much should we be giving our kids technology? How much should we be interacting with technology? Should I get a dumb phone? Should I get a flip phone? Should I delete this app or go grayscale? We\u2019re all very much figuring that out. And technology is going to keep advancing, so we need to be extremely tapped into culture and into our own feelings and into the situation at large.<\/p>\n

At the very least, I don\u2019t want to be caught off guard when my little cousin says the next version of \u201cSkibidi Toilet.\u201d I don\u2019t want to look not cool. <\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019re gonna look not cool no matter what!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every time a new slang word gets coined on the Internet, linguist Adam Aleksic is thrilled. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-70212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}