Science Friday
Hosted by Flora Lichtman and Ira Flatow
You might think sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler is chopped, but “Algospeak” author Adam Aleksic says we should let Gen Alpha cook.
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Hey, I'm Flora Lixman and you're listening to Science Friday. Up next on my skibidi, we have a linguistic Rizler here to tell us why my diction is giving Ohio. If that's brain rot to you, my next guest argues it's actually the future of language. Today, we're talking about Algo Speak, how algorithms are shaping the way that we write and talk and think with Adam Alexic. He's a TikToker, a language nerd, and the author of Algo Speak, How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language. And he's based in New York. Adam, welcome to Science Friday.
Hi, Flora. You might be the first person to ever call me a linguistic Rizler.
I'm going to take that as a compliment, but you can tell me why it's actually a diss. Did I use it correctly?
I guess younger people wouldn't quite say that because...
We're already here.
It's leaning into cringe humor, I suppose.
We're one second into this interview. Okay, tell me, how would the young kids, how would the young folks use it?
Well, it's like there's always a layer of irony, right? So the Rizler is like a character on TikTok. And it's funny because everybody knows that the word riz, which started trending in 2023, it's now sort of meta ironically poking fun at itself as a word.
Well, meta ironically is exactly how I meant it. How do you define algo speak?
Yeah, so I start with the example of unalive. And you can't say kill on TikTok. Your videos will be suppressed. So instead, many creators have chosen to say unalive instead, especially in mental health spaces where they need ways to share their stories and spread resources. And this has started to really affect our speech offline. There's kids in middle schools now writing essays about Hamlet contemplating unaliving himself. And that's an example of like algo speak under the classic definition of like speech meant to evade algorithmic censorship. But in the book, I argue that algo speak is in fact much more than that. It's algorithms are an underlying infrastructure, a medium shaping how all of our language evolves online right now.
Give me some other examples. If it's not just a way to get around community standards or censorship, what's another example of this wider definition of algo speak?
Sure, take the word riz, which was trending on the algorithm in the summer of 2023. And then it was remixed in October 2023 through the Rizler song, which capitalized on the previous trending value of riz. And this is something that you'll see a lot online, that if a word is trending, creators will try to tap into that trend because our job is to stay relevant and figure out what the algorithmic trends are. So we see that a word is trending. We use the word and we perpetuate the trend further into virality. And now humans have always had memes and fads and trends. That's not new, but the fact that the algorithm compounds natural human behaviors is new. The fact that it creates like these communities that feel like they have a space to use their words and then opens up those communities enough to allow those words to spread. All that is still algo speak.
I'm going to sound old again. You talk fast.
Sorry, maybe it's the social media training. No, you're supposed to talk faster online. It's good for getting attention because the slower you talk, the easier it is to scroll away. The more dead air that there is, the easier it is to scroll away. So maybe I've conditioned myself into just speaking fast in general. Even in context when I shouldn't be. And this is sort of a theme that I came across that there are influencer accents that are adopted, different styles. So I have like a fast paced, high stressed influencer accent. And then there's people, you know, the standard lifestyle influencer like, hey, guys, welcome to Science Friday. Like, that's like, sort of, but that's also good for attention.
I feel like you're trolling me.
I'm not. That's, you know, that's the standard lifestyle influencer accent. And it's, it's good because the uptalk keeps you hanging on every word, wondering what's coming next. Meanwhile, it also does that function of filling dead air, which is so bad for the algorithm.
Okay. How is algo speak different from how new language evolved in the past?
Language is the story of how humans use tools to communicate. And the tools sometimes change, which means we communicate in slightly different ways. And every once in a while, there's like an inflection point that completely changes how we talk to each other, right?
Like the printing press, for example?
Yeah, printing press completely revolutionized things. Well, one, it allowed for, you know, more standardized writing. At the same time, it created new gatekeepers to who can use language. At the same time, it did democratize some aspects of language. Now we have vernacular printing. Internet sort of has the same function. There's new gatekeepers. These are the websites that have like power over who can write in these forums. But at the same time, way more informal speech is allowed to replicate online. I think algorithms are yet another inflection point. You know, it's also a story of power. Who gets to control how language is reproduced?
Are new words popping up faster because of algorithms?
I think that's the main change that I can definitely say is happening. Because a lot of this is just old human cycles happening again and again. Onalife, for example, is just a euphemism for death. And we've been euphemizing death forever. That's why we say things like deceased or passed away. However, the fact that the algorithm is censoring the word for death means that humans are forced to come up with new words. And we see this across a lot of different sensitive topics. Because TikTok community guidelines are, not only are they strict, but creators tend to overcorrect and come up with algorithmic substitutions even when they don't have to. And what you see is the algorithm becomes what linguists call a productive force, something that produces more language change.
I mean, if algorithms are shaping our language, does that just mean that big tech companies' tastes and standards are driving the future of language?
I do think unfortunately, that is something we should be paying attention to. At the end of the day, when your middle schooler uses the word riz or skibidi or something like that, they're not using it because these big tech companies are pushing trends to commodify our attention. They're using it because it's funny and it's a way to relate to other middle schoolers. And that's a theme I keep coming across, that the language itself is not harmful, but it is sort of an indicator, maybe a bellwether, a canary in the coal mine of what's happening with language as a whole. We have language revolving and evolving around what grabs our attention online. And unfortunately, that's because these platforms have baked in attention-grabbing incentives for creators to replicate. They operate under the logic of, let's commodify everybody's attention so that we can sell them more ads and sell their data.
And, you know, language is sort of evolving that way as a result.
Do you think that's different than before? I mean, did language always evolve to grab our attention?
Absolutely. We've always needed attention to tell stories. Let's say you're a teacher and you need to, you know, educate your students. You can't do that if you don't have their attention, so you have to make it a little bit fun for them. But now I, as an educational creator online, I feel like that process is compounded and amplified. And I'm still trying to teach people things, but I can't even categorize it as education. It has to be edutainment. I have to package it in memes and funny things. Otherwise, the message simply won't spread because the algorithm won't push it. So this natural human tendency is, we squeeze it to make something even more extreme than otherwise would have existed by itself.
Are words dying faster too now?
Well, words have always been memes, and they die out when meme lifespans die out. I think online, the way it pushes memes rapidly, you do see some words fade in popularity a little bit faster. As soon as your grandmother starts saying skibidi, it's no longer fun for you to say skibidi, right? And your grandmother learns the word skibidi so quickly because of our ongoing fascination with the slang of younger generations and the availability of this information, and how algorithms push all of that at the same time.
Well, I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, if I say I have the one and only real 24 karat gold Labubu, because I'm trying to fit in, am I already outing myself as
No, that's surprisingly up to date on current memes, at least of recording. No, there's this trend right now where people are repeating sort of consumerist language. The riz and skibitty stuff was the original form of brain rot. It's more than something that rots your brain. It's a meme aesthetic online. And brain rot is sort of this nonsensical repetition of trending slang. So if I say skibitty riz, it's funny because it doesn't really mean anything, right? But if I say, right now, if I say Labubu 24 karat Dubai chocolate matcha, whatever, that's funny because it's repeating this over consumptive language, kind of critiquing our
consumer behaviors and the oversaturation of things that are being advertised to us online. Absolutely, that's a form of brain rot as well. Brain rot, the meme genre.
A Labubu, for our listeners, is a... How would you describe it? Like a small stuffed animal?
Yeah, it's a creepy looking stuffed animal.
What makes a word take off? Like, is there a secret sauce?
Yeah, words usually evolve under the conduits of what people find as funny or cool. And this has always been true. I think it's exaggerated online. The fact that, you know, you could sub in anything to mean death. But unalive is just kind of a funny word. It comes from a Roblox meme in 2018, which comes from an Ultimate Spider-Man meme. A lot of these meme words have previous origins. Skibitty comes from, it was funny because it referred to a fictional toilet on a YouTube short series. Riz was funny because it comes, it was also kind of cool because it came from this popular streamer, Kai Senat. And in the same way, you'll have a lot of words come from African-American English, which is seen as cool by some people and seen as funny by other people. And both of those conduits push their words into the mainstream. And this is
like a lot of Gen Z slang currently comes from Black Americans.
You know, one thing that I love about this is that it feels intentionally absurd. Like absurdity is on 11 with some of these words. A, would you agree with that? And B, do you think that's different from slang of yore?
Definitely, there is maybe a return to like dadaist aesthetics. I think each generation has, their language evolved through an aesthetic framework of what's funny or interesting. Millennial kind of humorous parody as being like trying too hard to be quirky or something. But that's just their aesthetic framework and it's funny for them. And
It's funny for us.
Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Gen Z's aesthetic framework is maybe, there is a layer of nonchalance for sure. And there's a layer of attached absurd irony. And that's, language evolves through these frameworks for how we perceive comedy.
Do you think that that tells us something about the world that Gen Z grew up in? This attachment to irony and absurdity?
I definitely think so. I think, like, again, the words themselves aren't bad. There's nothing about a word that will rot your brain. But they are indicators of cultural shifts. They are literal examples we can point to and say, oh, this is how an idea evolved. This word is here because this concept is important to us. And you have like these words relating to, say, depressive or detached language. It's called doom slang. You can say, I just want to lay down in bed and bed rot. Or I'm doom scrolling, stuff like that. This sort of like negative language reflects this attitude we might have right now to our current reality.
What else do you think it says about? I mean, what does the absurdity say about the world that we live in? Or this fixating on consumer culture and making fun of it?
I think that these algorithms are pushing more consumer labels and language on us than we've ever had before. We've had TV advertising, but you could just turn off the TV. Now, even when you're not on the algorithm and you're in a bar hanging out with some friends, the song playing on the radio is a song that was popularized through TikTok. And now that's affecting your collective headspace. And you walk down the street and you see these, you know, Dubai labubus. And all that kind of affects our headspace and we feel this pervasive feeling of being watched and being sold to, and it's exhausting. And that's why we turn to absurdism. And absurdism comes in times of high social change. I don't think it was a coincidence that dadaism and that kind of stuff was like right around World War I.
We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We have got lots more when we come back.
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What demographic, age-wise, is, like, on the, on the cutting edge of algo speak?
It's definitely middle schoolers.
Really?
If you're not tapped into middle schoolers, you don't know where the actual change is happening. It's these kids, they've always been coming up with new ways to create new identities and differentiate themselves from adults. And in forging this shared identity, they often create new language, right? And that's always been a thing. And it's always been, oh, the kids are talking different these days. We've always had that attitude. The algorithm sort of naturally picks up on what middle schoolers find fascinating, and then we compound that through, let's say, cringe culture. So the fact that riz was actually trending among middle schoolers, and then cringe creators start making humorous, parodying videos of the word riz, but they actually push the word riz more, and then more middle schoolers identify with it. Usually, the changes you can see are in the middle schools.
Because they are the most online?
Not necessarily the most online. I think they're probably as online as like older Gen Z people or something. It's just the most impressionable and they have the least crystallized idea of what language is. They're the most flexible to language change.
How do emojis fit into all this?
Emojis are just words. I mean, words evolved from the increasing abstraction of pictographs and now we have sort of pictographs depicting a, an idea, which is also what a word is. But just like words, they undergo semantic change. So I talk in the book about how, you know, you think, oh, an emoji is just this symbol, but in fact it has an imbued meaning. There is ironic emojis. The laughing crying emoji, for example, is no longer cool for indicating laughter, so people turn to the crying emoji. And then that died out because these words have trends, right? And then-
So they change their meaning, too?
Right. And then we move to the skull emoji, which now doesn't mean, you know, dead. It means like, I'm dead from laughing.
Do you feel like people take algo speak or, you know, Gen Z or Gen Alpha language seriously enough?
No, I definitely don't think so. I mean, we all know it's a little bit funny when I come on here and I talk about skibidi and riz, because it's funny to talk about pop culture in a serious academic lens. At the same time, pop culture always becomes history. And then what, once it becomes history, now it's okay, it's legitimized to like, look at it and talk about it seriously. I think we should be talking about it now because we're in this massive upheaval societally and the words are an indicator for what's going on with algorithms.
Say more about that.
The fact that things are happening faster, the fact that these algorithms are dominating our attention and that they're the, like, pretty much the only thing driving language change right now. If we want to look at culture, we have to look at the algorithms.
Okay. Before we go, I want to do a word speed round with you. So we asked our listeners to submit words they want to see go viral. And I just want your take. Any free association is game. Our first one is a caller from Rancho Cordova, California.
Amazing.
The word I made up, it's underthink. It is the opposite of overthink.
And underthink is when you should take more time, but you're not taking the time to do the critical thinking, the research, the fact checking, and it's gonna have a bad turnout.
So underthink, opposite of overthink?
Yeah, we have unpaired words in English. So the fact that there's a nonchalant but not a chalant, and now it's a social media trend to start saying chalant because it's funny. We had a lot, a lot of words sort of like that. Ruthless but not fruitful. Why hasn't there really been an underthink? I, I, I feel like there should have, like, it feels so obvious that I'm surprised there wasn't one. Uh, so it definitely makes sense. It just, it's a matter of whether people are actually going to adopt a word like that.
Okay, here's the next one.
Hey, this is Lee from Ridgeway, Colorado. This era of remote work has me often saying that I'm sporting a work mullit. That's a business on top, top, and pajama pants are a party on the bottom.
I, I love that. It's, um, applying one semantic domain to another. That's, you know, how metaphor works. And, uh, it's, it's just a funny way of expressing, uh, an important thing. And there's some underlying thing there as well, like the tension between personal life and work life. And we see that from shows like Severance to all these TikToks. But, uh, I, I really like that concept.
Here's the last one.
Hey, this is Alan out of Charleston, South Carolina. And my internet word or phrase or meme that I like to see take off into the mainstream, uh, thanks to Jay Renshaw, do it lady. You can use it in any context, positive or negative, male or female, do it lady.
Well, I have news for you. That's actually being used in the middle schools. I, I follow this one account. There's a few accounts you have to follow if you really want to be tapped into middle school culture. One of them is a TikToker named Mr. Lindsay. He's a middle school teacher and he often covers what middle schoolers are saying that particular week. And they are in fact saying do it lady right now from that internet meme. So maybe, maybe there's some real, real thing happening there. I love that.
Alan, nice job, Alan. Uh, although now that we've mentioned it on the show, we've probably killed its chances for going viral. It's like your grandma saying skibidi. Thank you, Adam, for being on the show with us today. Adam Alexic is the author of "Algo Speak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language." Thanks for coming on.
Thank you so much.
We recorded that story back in July of this year, and I guarantee you that it is hopelessly 6/7. This episode was produced by Kathleen Davis. Thanks for listening. I'm Flora Lichtman.
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