Algospeak review: An essential update on how social media is turbocharging language

Algospeak
Adam Aleksic (Ebury (United Kingdom, July 17) Knopf (United States, July 15))

Nothing makes you feel old as being bambooed by the slang. Even Adam Aleksic chapter titles Algospeak: how social media transform the future of the language have this effect. “Take out your gyat to rizzler” and “Slangmaxxing by word” remind me that, as a millennium, I am as close to the baby boomers as I am at the generation of today Alpha.

Aleksic, linguist and content creator (@andymologynerd), aims to enlighten a new era of linguistic innovation motivated by social media, in particular short video platforms such as Tiktok. The “algospeak” of the title of the book is conventionally used to describe the euphemisms and other means of bypassing online censorship, with recent examples, in particular “non-comme” (reference to death or suicide) or “seggs” (sex).

But the author pleads to extend the definition to include all aspects of language influenced by “algorithm” – which is itself an euphemist term to describe the different processes, often highly secret, social media platforms use to decide what content serves for users and in what order.

Aleksic relies on his experience to earn a living online – in his case, through educational videos on the language. Like any content creator, it is encouraged to appease the algorithm, which means choosing the words carefully. A video he made on the etymology of the word “pen” (going back to the Latin “penis”) fell due to the rules of sexual content, while another analyzing the controversial slogan “from the river to the sea” had its limited scope.

Meanwhile, videos on Trendy Gen Alpha terms, such as “skibidi” (a widely absurd word with Roots in SCAT song) and “Gyat” (“damn” or “ass”), particularly well performed. His experiences show how creators adapt their language for algorithmic gains, which means that certain words spread online and, in the most successful cases, also offline. When Aleksic questioned the teachers, he found that many terms have become a regular class slang; Some children even learn the word “not satisfied” before “suicide”.

It is the clearest on its special subject, etymology, drawing the way in which algorithm propels the words of online subcultures into the dominant internet current. The Incel Misogyne community is the most prolific contributor to modern slang, he says, precisely because it is so radicalized, which can overeat the development of a group language.

Aleksic is mostly without judgment on linguistic trends. “An stable,” he said, is really not different from previous euphemisms such as “deceased”, while “Skibidi” is akin to “scooby-doo”. It is only recently that we classified the slang in terms of arbitrarily defined generations, which, according to him, is often inaccurate and lends a toxic framing to the evolution of normal language.

Things are slightly more complex when words owe their use of the dominant current to cultural appropriation. Many of today’s slang terms, like “cool” before them, can be traced to the black communities (“Thicc”, “Bruh”). Others have roots in the LGBTQ ballroom scene (“Slay”, “Yass”, “Queen”). Generalized adoption can divorce these words from their history, which is often linked to social struggles, and can even strengthen negative stereotypes on the communities that have generated them.

It is difficult to prevent the collapse of this context – this is the fate of successful slang. Social media quickly shortened the periods for linguistic innovation, which makes Algospeak An essential update, but also leads him to become obsolete quickly. However, the underlying information on how technology shapes language remains relevant – as long as algorithm has its way.

Victoria Turk is a writer based in London

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