(Roughly) Daily

On the occasion of the publication of his new book, Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language, Adam Aleksic — aka the “Etymology Nerd” — talks with Liz Mineo about how social media algorithms are transforming language…

… I’m a big believer that the medium is the message. The way the information is being diffused is going to affect how we communicate. For example, with the arrival of writing, there was this big shift away from us telling stories with rhyme and meter. Plato said that writing was going to make us worse at remembering things. With the printing press, information is diffused more quickly, and more people have the ability to be literate, but there are still gatekeepers, which is affecting who gets to tell the story. And then the internet allows us to lose the gatekeepers; anybody can tell the story now, and that’s another paradigm shift in language. Algorithms are a new paradigm shift because the centralization of the internet that occurred in the late 2010s, coupled with how these algorithms push content through personalized recommendation feeds, are changing how we understand the very act of communication…

… Algorithms are shaping the way we speak. Platforms’ priorities play an important role in organizing and shaping how our language develops. The algorithm pushes more trends, creates more in-groups that then create new language. New trending words are amplified by social media; creators replicate words that they know are going viral, because it helps them go more viral, and then they push the words more into existence. This is the cycle that we’re constantly in. I think it’s because of the algorithm, which amplifies trends, that we’re getting more rapid language change than before. The biggest takeaway from my book is that algorithms are deeply affecting our society right now, and we should be paying attention to them…

When I say algorithms are the culprits, I mean that they are, in this metaphor, responsible for the perpetuation of slang at this speed, and influencers are being accomplices because we’re playing a part. The algorithm doesn’t do anything by itself; it doesn’t come up with the words or spread the words by itself. It’s humans who are doing that, with our own ideas of what the algorithm is or should be, and that pushes the words faster than otherwise. Eventually, those words enter your vocabulary, and that, I guess, makes you the victim…

What concerns you about the way social media and its algorithms are changing language?

As a linguist, I have no concerns because language is the means by which humans connect with one another. As a cultural critic, I’m pretty concerned by the way in which language is more commodified than ever before, and I’m concerned that certain groups are influencing our language more than other groups, like incels. Words that are part of the incel vocabulary like “pilled,” “maxxing,” or “sigma” are very popular. For example, if I like burritos, I can say, “I’m so burrito-pilled,” or if I want to eat more burritos, I can say “I’m burrito-maxxing.” The fact that we are using these words is an indicator that this culture is influencing us, and it also indicates that the way ideas spread and percolate in the online space can be dangerous. Incels are incredibly misogynistic and have a worldview that causes them to dehumanize other people. They have been able to spread their ideology because of the nature of the internet right now. If we pay attention to how language is changing, we should also pay attention to how culture is changing.

As a linguist, I’m very excited to see that language is developing faster than before. To me, language is almost a form of resistance. Every single new meme that emerges is a reactive cultural force to the over-organization of society. This summer, the term “clanker,” which is a speculative slur for artificial intelligence, became very popular. In March, we saw “Italian Brain Rot,” a meme that uses AI subversively to generate ridiculous cartoon characters. Both of these memes create a commentary about our current state of technological progress. A lot of memes and slang words are emerging in reflection to our current cultural moment. There’s something really beautiful about that…

“Our viral vocabulary,” from @etymology.substack.com.web.brid.gy (TotH to J O’D)

Apposite: “Understanding the new economics of attention” (gift article from The Economist)

(Image above: source)

* Adam Aleksic, Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language

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As we pause to parse, we might note that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day… that’s to say, a day on which to speak in English with a stereotypical West Country accent.

Created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers of Albany, Oregon, it has since been adopted as an official holiday by the Pastafarianism movement.