Tracing Social Media's Influence on Language in Adam Aleksic's Algospeak

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

Algospeak book cover

Author and Etymology Nerd Adam Aleksic

Big thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor Publishers and NetGalley for making Adam Aleksic’s Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language available for review.  William S. Burroughs often proposed the idea that language is a virus back in the 1960s, explaining that language will often adapt to novel situations in order to gain prominence and, in Burroughs concerns with propaganda and control, coerce and manipulate individuals and societies especially when others in power have tools and technology to spread this virus. Although he died when dial-up internet was still big in the late 90s, he didn’t live to see the term “going viral” manifest, but I often wonder what he would think of how ideas and trends spread through the internet and social media today. Adam Aleksic, a linguist who creates online content exploring language history and a self-described etymology nerd, has written a book that examines how our increasing time spent online has impacted our language use. While many people may have their own assumptions about the state of language since social media has become increasingly popular (myself included), Aleksic notes, somewhat like Burroughs, that language has always been influenced (or infected) by society and the technology that arises. He cites several pre-digital examples of technology, especially in the more recent eras of mass media that have proliferated new phrases, slang, and phrasal templates that are often adopted and used in novel situations and become part of our common parlance. This was a fascinating book, and while I didn’t agree with everything Aleksic says, especially about algorithms, his book challenged my thinking about language, culture, and technology, and made me a little less concerned and a little more aware of current trends. Although Aleksic is a TikToker, this book is an incredibly useful reference and resource for parents and teachers who may be confronted with the strange new language that their teens and tweens seem to be bringing home from school on a daily basis. Whether they’re asking you to have more rizz or just talking about brain rot, Aleksic provides some useful etymology for these OL terms and how they arrived in our homes IRL. He will frequently use these examples as a starting point to explore more complex linguistic ideas, working from the specific examples to more general frameworks and concepts, and then back to the specific examples. I appreciated this approach since he uses familiar ideas that I’ve encountered with my kids, and this helps to prime me for understanding some of the other learning and language concepts that he presents.

Each chapter deals with a different trend and concept in language, many of which have been proliferated by social media. One of the more interesting concepts that I considered with this book is how social media has sped up the adoption and abandonment of many of these terms. As Aleksic notes, most subgroups or subcultures use language to denote their affiliations or connections. Specialized language helps to bond and demonstrate a shared understanding; yet, oftentimes, when a subculture gradually becomes part of the dominant culture, their language may leak out as well, being absorbed and adopted by the dominant culture. Aleksic uses the example of “cool” as a part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) used in the 1940s. As African American culture became more influential in the dominant American culture, many phrases and terms were adopted, and we eventually have the word cool, which still exists, although it may not be used by the vanguard of culture anymore. As Aleksic also noted from interviews and surveys with middle school students, once older generations or those on the outside (or within the dominant culture) begin to use these terms, those within the subcultures often adopt new phrases and terms, abandoning what was once theirs. The internet and social media are speeding up this process, enabling language to proliferate quicker than ever, especially through short-form videos popularized by Vine, a TikTok predecessor, and TikTok.  

Aleksic is a skilled writer who is able to convey complex concepts and ideas to a broad audience, most likely due to his experience and success as a successful content creator on social media. For example, the first chapter uses the whac-a-mole analogy to explain how online language has adapted to evade censors and content checkers. Posters online have developed euphemisms and other representations to identify new ways of expressing controversial and hotly debated topics. This use of language has extended into real life where Aleksic found an example of the Seattle Museum of Pop Culture used the term “unalive” to explain Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994. While this book examines the etymology of many different terms and phrases from OL that have made it into our IRL convos, Aleksic explores how algorithms have helped to shape much of the ways we talk. Again, this is something I first noticed with my kids around the start of the pandemic when screen time increased and there was little to do around the house. One activity that my kids enjoyed engaging in was making videos on their iPads. I was amazed that my kids would hit record and start the video with something like “Hi everyone, today we’re going to…” and often end with “Don’t forget to hit that like button…” It was just something they associated with videos from viewing content online, most likely watching other kids unbox toys. Nevertheless, youtube kids continued to push these videos as my kids engaged with similar videos more and more. Aleksic not only explains how these templates repeat as the popularity of these videos ends up replicating them, but he also notes that many of the opening phrase templates use the kind of language and tones that are a part of children’s television shows like Sesame Street, which makes sense when creators are trying to engage their audience, but also appeal to familiarity.

The chapters that dealt with etymology tracing the history of popular slang terms were probably my favorite. In one chapter titled “It’s Giving Appropriation”, Aleksic uses terms like slay, fam, and throwing shade to examine how words from the Ballroom Drag scene of the 70s and 80s NYC made their way onto social media and eventually into more popular parlance, moving from an underground marginalized community to the mainstream, dominant culture. Furthermore, Aleksic notes how this kind of appropriation often fails to denote the language’s origins, as well as the kinds of risk that this appropriation might hold for marginalized communities. As Aleksic repeatedly reminds us, language, and specifically slang or these kinds of specialized terms used by a subculture, are a strong indication of identity and belonging, and when these terms become assimilated into the dominant culture, this may pose a risk to the subculture’s identity. The chapter that precedes “It’s Giving Appropriation” is titled “Wordpilled Slangmaxxing”, and I initially found it upsetting since the focus is on incel language. Although Aleksic uses incels as another frame of reference for tracing what are now more common terms, I initially wondered why the book focused on this abhorrent, misogynistic, helpless group. Although incels are pathetic, Aleksic explores how their language was catchy, using combinations of familiar terms in novel ways, and managed to convert some people online. The chapter primarily examines how words like Sigma and looksmaxxing were diffused through memes posted on 4chan, where the anonymity of posters allowed incels to run wild. It was a little disturbing to think about how these terms my kids use originated as incel ideas, but again, Aleksic notes how over time, memes allow ideas and language in particular to morph and adapt for novel adoption in different environments. It’s a truly fascinating look at how abhorrent ideas are reshaped and recast into the dominant culture and eventually lose their meaning. This also highlights the kind of duality of how language and idea diffusion from subcultures to the dominant culture can be both positive and negative. In some ways, the diffusion can lessen horrible ideas and bring about less relevance to hate groups, but in other ways, this kind of appropriation can begin to trample on the originality and uniqueness of subcultures or marginalized groups.

Aleksic also notes this duality when he discusses algorithms towards the later chapters in the book. One fascinating chapter, “What Are We Wearing This Summer?”, examines how “core” groups are formed online, but in turn how many of these specialized subcultures are frequently targeted by marketers and corporations. It was interesting to learn about so many of these subcultures (cottagecore, goblincore) and how corporations use a targeted marketing strategy of trying to get smaller groups to buy more products to stand out with their individuality. It also seemed like some of the platforms and corporations work to create new subcultures or genres of music to appeal to people. I’ve often wondered about how some of these new genres have formed, but it seems like it’s possibly a corporate creation, which in turn, ends up driving some artists to make music or art to fit that genre. It’s a strange kind of hamster wheel like cycle, where I wondered what was really driving the creation and consumption of art—the individuality of the participants or the bottom line of corporations.

The one idea that I somewhat disagreed with Aleksic is in the last chapter. “At the same time, algorithms aren’t all bad. In democratizing public communication, they’ve given us more access than ever to public video evidence and records…Now that anybody can have a platform, it’s harder for elite powers to set the agenda by manufacturing consent…” Although I agree that social media has provided more people with a platform for communication and information, I’m not sure if everyone is using it for that purpose. While people have freedom of expression and can use social media for art and creation as well as information dissemination, we also see how many people use social media for personal gain or to promote disinformation. Furthermore, I question whether social media, which are large corporations who rely on selling our personal data and information to other large corporations, are really democratizing information. In a recent election, two owners of social media companies teamed up to win a close and contentious election. I often wonder what role Twitter had in the 2024 election. Were certain voices algorithmically suppressed, while other voices possibly received more attention, likes and retweets? What role, if any, did that have on people’s likelihood of voting for candidates? We also know that with twitter’s new owner, there was a promise to return to absolute first amendment rights, whether the information was true or not. We saw how the power of language and disinformation on social media led to the violence of January 6^th. Meta is now going to abandon the fact checking it put in place after COVID disinformation ran rampant on its platform. I wonder how much more algorithms will favor the kinds of fictions people may prefer to hear or that social media companies know will draw more engagement, whether it is through affinities or rage. In 2017, Franklin Foer wrestled with the implications of the algorithm on our daily life, noting that engineers have frequently sought to optimize our lives and make daily life more efficient. The algorithm is one of the primary tools for this, and while yes, it does bring us recommendations or content that it thinks we will enjoy or engage with, some of them are programmed to present us with more extreme content, since social science has indicated that people react more strongly to extreme content. In Foer’s argument, he suggests that the cost of this efficiency is our free will. Social media corporations seek our attention and engagement, but also want to make decisions for us, which is a scary concept. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that social media is a significant part of our daily lives, and Aleksic’s book highlights how language in particular is influenced by social media. This is a fascinating book that challenges our assumptions about language and social media, allowing us to reconsider its influence by reminding us that technology and other human innovations have always had a bidirectional influence on language, each working to shape one another. Despite some of my own concerns about how algorithms are affecting our lives, I found this book to be enlightening and entertaining. Aleksic’s experience as a content creator demonstrates that he knows how to appeal to a broad audience and make complicated topics relevant and interesting for almost everyone. This is a great book for parents, teachers, and any other etymology nerds. 

 

Poetic Despair

 Greek Lessons by Han Kang

Greek Lessons book cover

After reading The Vegetarian, I was interested in reading more by Han Kang, but also somewhat hesitant to read other works. While I was thoroughly enthralled by The Vegetarian, I can’t say that I enjoyed the book. It was compelling but also somewhat disturbing, eliciting strong emotions in the ways that powerful literature can. I think that Greek Lessons was similar. It was a powerful and emotionally compelling novel, with poetic descriptions. While the novel is loosely about a teacher and student who both lose an aspect of their ability to sense and communicate (the teacher is losing his vision while the student loses her ability to talk), their losses are further complicated by their prior experiences with losing loved ones. Interestingly, both characters seem to experience a new kind of expression through classical Greek. While the novel is incredibly sad, Kang’s descriptions (or the translations) are emotionally fraught and powerful. This is a book I would like to revisit, but more for re-reading the emotions of the characters. I don’t think this is a book for everyone, but I do think that it speaks to a kind of loneliness and the search for connection. More specifically, it examines how we can use language (or lose ourselves in language) to express our feelings and convey our emotions. Interestingly, it seems like the student is unable to find words to accurately convey her feelings, while the teacher is able to, but is also rejected by others to whom he conveys his feelings. Maybe that is why they both seek out the ambiguities in classical Greek—because it’s both precise and somewhat vague. This was definitely a novel that made me both think and feel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Fun Review of 80s Classic Film

 They Live: A Novel Approach to Cinema (Deep Focus) by Jonathan Lethem

They Live book cover

I’ve had this book several times, but I always seem to lose a copy. When I recently bought another copy, I made sure to bring it with me on a trip and read it. This was my first read of the Novel Approach series, and I really wanted to read Lethem’s analysis of this movie. I watched They Live again over the summer, and I probably could have watched it again. Nevertheless, I think watching the movie within the last year is helpful in walking through Lethem’s scene by scene analysis. Lethem doesn’t get too in depth with his analysis and nothing is really that ground breaking, but it is a fun read. I found myself laughing at times as Lethem explores some of the ridiculous scenes, proposing some interesting backstories for some characters. He does do some cursory research of the movie, but he admits that he doesn’t know too much about Carpenter. As someone who really admires Lethem’s writing, this was a fun book to read. I appreciated the context of the film—as the end of the Reagan era was approaching, and considering how this film used Roddy Roddy Piper as an action hero (something that didn’t really work out as well as some future wrestling stars). It was a quick read, and I liked that the book focused on scenes—especially noting how ridiculously long the fight scene between Piper and Keith David is. I have one other book from this series to check out, but I don’t know how much I’m looking forward to watching Death Wish. 

Contextual Analysis of a 90s Trendsetting Album

 Massive Attack's Blue Lines (33 1/3) 

by Ian Bourland

Blue Lines book cover

I’m not a huge Massive Attack fan, but I have always appreciated their music, and more often like a lot of other bands coming from Bristol (Tricky, Portishead). It was interesting to read about the kind of nominal “Bristol Sound” that Bourland cited as more of a journalistic device to point to all of the music coming out of this area in the 90s. I agree since many of these bands sounds quite different. I really enjoyed this look at Blue Lines. Bourland doesn’t really delve into the songs specifically but takes a more contextual approach, looking at the environment and time period that led to the creation of this album, examining how crews around Bristol set up sound systems, eventually leading members of Massive Attack to one another. I also learned that Neneh Cherry had a hand in helping with this album. I was reading this book at the same time as Thurston Moore’s Sonic Life memoir, so it was a weird coincidence that Neneh Cherry came up in both books, with both books talking about Don Cherry and The Slits. Regardless, Bourland engaged in considerable research to show how NY hip-hop culture (graffiti, sound systems) from the 70s filtered through England in the 80s, and created something novel and unique. I think this is apparent in Massive Attack’s work, since they are not really the kind of boom-bap that was happening in the 80s and 90s, but more relaxed and heady. I also really appreciated that Bourland not only looks into the scenes and conditions that led to the creation of Massive Attack, but also examines the lives of some of the participants, like Tricky and Cherry. While this book is a little different from the kind of song by song analysis of some 33 1/3 books, I really appreciated Bourland’s extensive research and exploration of this album and the factors that led to its creation. 

Critical Analysis of a Ground Breaking Album

 Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach (33 1/3) by Roshanak Kheshti

Switched-On Bach cover

Kheshti’s analysis of the transformational album Switched-On Bach is a great approach to exploring a landmark album like this. Her focus is not only on the fact that this was the first album to use a synthesizer, but also on what a pioneer Carlos is in the field of music in general. Carlos not only became one of the first moog players, but broke boundaries as a woman in the field of classical music. Although Kheshti talks a little about Carlos’s gender identity, she uses this to show how the music industry often subjects women to double standards, questioning their musical skills and placing their gender above their abilities. I had not thought about this album in quite this way, although I have always enjoyed the sounds and this different approach to considering classical music. As someone who grew up with electronic music and synthesizers as a part of popular music, I had not really considered how revolutionary this album was and the possible backlash from musical purists that might have resulted. Kheshti considers these aspects, but also looks at the aesthetics of the album, including its cover, to consider how it has helped to shape our notions of electronic music over the years. Although it might be more academic for some fans of the 33 1/3 series, I really enjoyed this one. 

Sonic Life- A Memoir

 Sonic Life: Memoir by Thurston Moore

Sonic Life book cover

I really wanted to love this book, and I should love this book. Sonic Youth are one of my all-time favorite bands. I remember seeing the video for Kool Thing when I was in 8^th grade and wondering who the band playing with Chuck D was. They were a massive part of my college experience, and one of the bands I would see on a regular basis every time they came through Philly. I not only regularly bought and listened to their albums, but also regularly listened to Thurston Moore’s solo and collaborative projects. I read Kim Gordon’s excellent book Girl in a Band a few years ago and loved it. It was heartfelt, engaging, and thoughtful, providing insight into the early years of Sonic Youth, as well as a glimpse at Gordon’s creative process and thinking. Comparison’s with Gordon’s book are inevitable since she and Moore are the original members of Sonic Youth. There are some good moments in Moore’s memoir—he’s at his best when he’s talking about music, whether it is his many influences or the process of creating music. I especially enjoyed reading about how exciting punk rock and the no wave scenes were in 1970s NYC. It was fun and entertaining to read about Moore’s early experiences going into the city with his friend Harrold, and how seeing bands and shows shaped his desire and ideas about making art and music. While there are many influences and other musicians Moore cites as both his influences and interests, he sometimes goes more into listing rather than getting descriptive and detailed about the music. Although I feel a little conflicted criticizing his memoirs, I felt like there are other points where he gets too descriptive and detailed about aspects of his experiences that are not as relevant. For example, he spends some time describing the food he would eat or meals at cheap restaurants that seemed to have no real bearing on the story. There are other events, like a shocking murder at a downtown restaurant, that was mentioned as having a negative influence on the no wave scene, but it’s not really delved into with that much depth or exploring the way it really fractured the scene. Other celebrity mentions (Madonna comes up a few times, not really meeting the Grateful Dead) are mentioned, but don’t really add anything to the narrative. I found myself growing a little bored and restless with some of these stories. What was probably most disappointing was how little he discussed the end of Sonic Youth. The book kind of ends quickly, but that might also be because he spent over 400 pages in the previous phases of his life and band. I enjoyed reading a lot of this book, and Thurston Moore is a fun guy. His love of music, noise, and especially punk rock really comes through in his writing. However, I wish this book was like 100 pages shorter and that there were some stories and events that were left out of the book. 

Examining The Consequences of Imperialism

 The Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

The Wide Sea book cover

Thank you to NetGalley and Double Day Books for allowing me to preview Hampton Sides’s The Wide Wide Sea. I previously read Sides’s excellent book In the Kingdom of Ice, which I found to be an incredible adventure story. Not knowing much about arctic exploration, it was fascinating to learn about a world where certain regions were unknown and unexplored. The Wide Wide Sea follows a similar pattern in tracing the final journey of British explorer Captain Cook. I also did not know much about Cook, but having read David Grann’s The Wager recently as well, I was really interested in this period of naval exploration, especially as countries like Spain and England competed for the new land and sea routes. Sides opens the story discussing Cook and his legacy as an explorer (or negative discoverer) and how his views of indigenous groups were often more tolerant and inquisitive of other explorers of his time. I also appreciated Sides’s notes to begin about the changing views of Cook’s explorations and the idea of “discovery” and private property in many of the Polynesian lands that Cook explored. What was most important, though, was the nature of contact and how the limited narratives we have about sexual contact between the British and indigenous peoples they met. Sides indicates that our knowledge is primarily one-sided, but this was one of the more surprising elements of the book to learn how the men frequently spread disease through sexual contact, and how frequently Cook tried to stop this practice. Like In the Kingdom of Ice, Sides uses the journals and letters existing from the logs and diaries to give us insight into the different participants, and he does amazing work building relevant and engaging characters, as we learn about their motivations and thoughts about this journey. I also really appreciated that Sides brings in the indigenous beliefs and stories, especially when the men visit Hawaii, to learn more about the possible motivations for trade, contact, or even understanding how the indigenous people may have viewed Cook and his men.

One of the other fascinating parts of the book was the story of Mai or Omai, a young Polynesian man who was brought to England in the 1700s as almost a human pet. As horrible as that was, it was fascinating to learn about his experiences adapting to English culture, and how this cross-cultural experience affected him on his return to Polynesia/Ra’itea. I really enjoyed reading about his return to the islands and the challenges he had re-integrating into their society. Furthermore, his family was killed by people from Bora Bora, so much of his return was focused on revenge on the people who murdered his family and stole his land. It was really interesting, but also somewhat sad. It sounded like Cook really cared about Mai and that others also took more than a passing interest in him and his well being; yet, those who were educating him in England seemed to have different intentions. Nevertheless, Mai’s story plays an important part in the first 1/3-1/2 of the book. The other part of the book deals more with Cook’s arrival in Hawaii for the first time, travels to Alaska, attempts to  

However, it was Sides’s ability to use the letters and journals of the participants to develop their characters and understand their motivations. In much the same way, Sides uses the logs and existing literature on the journey of Captain Cook’s travels to the Alaskan coast, attempts to navigate towards the arctic circle, and his return to Hawaii. I loved reading about these descriptions of the landscapes untouched by development and the traditions and beliefs of the indigenous people that Cook’s ships encountered. As Sides notes, Cook was not always tolerant and accepting of these other cultures, but more often than not, he was willing to learn more about them to understand their motivations, and most likely access their resources like water and timber for their ship. This was another thrilling adventure with some sad consequences. Nevertheless, it was interesting to learn about all of the areas that Cook explored that were previously unknown to European explorers. Highly recommended book.