ALGOSPEAK: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, Adam Aleksic..."@etymology_nerd" at his most informative

ALGOSPEAK: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language
ADAM ALEKSIC
Alfred A. Knopf (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Author Aleksik speaks to Taylor Lorenz about ChatGPT.

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From linguist Adam Aleksic, known as @etymologynerd on social media, comes a captivating exploration of how internet algorithms are transforming language and communication in unprecedented ways.

“Packed with fascinating facts, of-the-moment observations, and a sparkling voice, Algospeak is a gift to any word nerd. Deftly covering everything from emoji etymologies and trendbait to Taylor Swift fanilects… Adam Aleksic is the wise, yet accessible internet linguistics oracle we need.” —Amanda Montell, author of The Age of Magical Overthinking and Cultish

From “brainrot” memes and incel slang to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. Thankfully, Algospeak is here to explain. As a professional linguist, Adam Aleksic understands the gravity of language and the way we use it: he knows the ways it has morphed and changed, how it reflects society, and how, in its everyday usage, we carry centuries of human history on our tongues. As a social media influencer, Aleksic is also intimately familiar with the internet’s reach and how social media impacts the way we engage with one another. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform language as we know it. Our interactions, social norms, and habits—both online and in person—shift into something completely different.

As Aleksic uses original surveys, data, and internet archival research to usher us through this new linguistic landscape, he also illuminates how communication is changing in both familiar and unexpected ways. From our use of emojis to sentence structure to the ways younger generations talk about sex and death (see unalive in English and desvivirse in Spanish), we are in a brand-new world, one shaped by algorithms and technology. Algospeak is an energetic, astonishing journey into language, the internet, and what this intersection means for all of us.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There's a really fine line between niches and ghettos. There is a very fine line between going mainstream and cultural appropriation, between mockery and normalization, between slang and neologism.

And each of these can be true of any language unit all at the same time. Because language is about *why* even more than *how* you use its units of meaning. The usual moral panics of every age are at work, making "rizz" and "-core" and the like horsebeings of the apocalypse that will utterly destroy critical thinking, education, and the fabric of society.

Prepare for Mad Max meets The Hunger Games, y'all. Uptalking girls and sigma males are going to displace us at the top of the tree no matter how long or how hard we cling to the power it's time we gave up. And yes, I hate uptalking as much as any other old man, plus the very idea of the alpha male let alone the incel spin that is a sigma make me queasy. Their use now has a context I'd never had before, the possession of which reassures ("sigma" is a humiliating appropriation of terrible peoples' slang) and concerns (uptalking is a worrisome signal of algorithmically reinforced misogyny by seeking approval in making questions of statements).

It's their world now. Let them make their mistakes. They literally can not do worse than we did, what with keeping our snouts in the trough while the lowest scum imaginable piled up playmoney and choked the entire planet on deadly gases.

So what Author Aleksic does here, and on his YouTube channel, is offer a guide for the perplexed among the different truths of language change, and thus what to watch out for (spoiler: harmful uses of language are bad). His analysis of how the acceleration of language change got turbocharged by the greed of capitalism is directly congruent to my take on things (read: prejudice), and his more-reassuring-than-alarming example of "unalive" as the youth culture's work-around for algorithmic idiocy targeting "dead" and "death" as markers of "sensitive content" reminds me that people are always going to come up with ways around overzealous nonsense.

What made this book by a linguist (past president of the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society) so absorbing and involving to me was that he has the formal, old-person-approved training and the business-model savvy of a content creator across multiple platforms. The distinctions he draws among normal language change, harmful appropriative theft, and highly concerning capitalist manipulations of identity for profit, are all backed up by actual research. Nothing's perfect...the notes are extensive but, in my DRC, not links so I had to type them into my browser to check them (oh, the pain! said in my best 1965-Lost-in-Space voice), and there were times I wasn't sure if I was reading a self-help for YouTubers book...but there was never a time I wanted to stop reading.

Anyone who's got grandkids ought to read it. Anyone who thinks the future will take care of itself, or is already doomed to failure and evil times, also ought to read this. Y'all're both right, and wrong, and here's why. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.