These words Roll off the tongue for aleksic, a 24-yar-ald linguist and content creator who posts as Etymology nerd on social media. Other may find them slightly bewildering. But, as he argues in an a new book, “Algospeak: How social media is transforming the future of language,” That distinctly 21st-century coinages are in conside Shifting Lexicon.

“The more I look into it, the more I realized that algorithms are really affecting every aspect of modern language,” Aleksic Said in a recent interview, padding around the manhattan apartan he shares with. Wearing socks stitched with tiny dolphins.

Even Those Who Steer Clear of Social Media Are Not Exempt. If you have encountered Oxford University Press’s 2024 Word of the year, “Brain Rot” (The “SUPPOSED DEARTIORATION OF A PERSON’S Mental or Intellectual State,” Thanks to a Firehose of Digital Content), You, TEO HAD HAD A HAD A HAD A HAD HAD A HAD HAD A HAD HAD A HAD HAD A HAD HAD A HAD A HAD A HAD HAD A HAD HAD A HAD A A. With social media’s abality to incubate slang and catapult it into the offline world.

Aleksic has been dissecting slang associated with gen z on social media 2023. Explain the Spread of Terms Including “Lowkey” and “Gyat.” (If you must know, the latter is a synonym for butt.)

The videos are more rigorous than their Informal Quality Might Suggest. Each One Takes Four or Five Hours to Compose, He Said. He scripts every word, and combs google scholar for relevant papers from academic journal that he can cite in Screenshots.

He appears to be fashion himself as bill nye for gen z language entusiasts. In the process, he has become a go-to voice for journalists and anyone older than 30 Who Might Want to Understand “Skibidi Toilet,” The Nonsensical Name of YouTube Series, HAS Wormed its way into gen alpha’s vocabulary.

What he wants now is to be taken seriously outside of those circles. “I want to balance being a ‘ha-ha funny’ tiktoker with academic credibility,” He said. “It’s a little hard to strke that is when you are talking about ‘skibidi toilet’ on the internet.”

‘Rizz’: A CASE STUDY

Aleksic settled in his living room, under the apparent surveillance of the several stick-on Googly eye from since his most recent birthday party. To the left of the entrance was a makeshift ball pit filled with orbs that resume enormous plastic dippin ‘dots. (He installed it as a bit, but has come to Appreciate its Ability to Foster Conversation.)

In person, he is animated but not frenetic, a click or three less intense than he appears in his videos. He is happy to lean into the persona of a fast-talking know-it-when it means engaging people who will do otherwise spare a little for etymology.

He started speeding up his cadancy when he realized that brisk videos tended to get more views. “I’m’ll retake a video if I don’t think I spoke fast enjoy,” he said.

Just as Aleksic Changed the way he spoke in response to algorithmic pressure, language, too, can be happy by using an audience on social media.

Take “Rizz,” which means something along the lines of “charisma.” According to Aleksic, The word was popularized by Twitch Streamer Kai Cenat, whose young fans picked up the term. So did the robust ecosestem of people online who make fun of cenat’s Every Move. Soon, the word had been flagged by tiktok’s recommendation algorithm as a trending topic that it could highlight to keep viewers engaged. Influncers – Including Aleksic – Whatever their posts to be pushed to more viewers now had an incentive to join in.

This Process Slingshots Trendy Coinages Into the Broader Consciousness. But it also also yanks terms from their original context faster than ever before, he said. Words with Origins in African American English or Ballroom Culture, for Instance, are mislabeled as “Gen Z Slang” or “Internet Slang.”

Aleksic Tackles That Well-Documenon in a Chapter Titled “It’s Giving Appropriation.” Other sections of the book, which was released by Knopf this month, spend time with subcultures that play an outsize role in modeern language generation, instaluding k-pop fans, who boosted the term “and in ink. Involuntary Celibates, who popularized the term “Sigma.”

Words have always traveled from Insular Communities into Wider Usage: Aleksic likes the example of “OK” Campaign. (His nickname in full, “Old Kinderhook,” was a bit of a mouthful.)

But “Delulu” and “Rizz” Didn ‘Did the Eighth President’s Help to Travel Across the country – they had the internet. And Tiktok’s Powerful Algorithm is more effecting at the word out than oldcyhook’s most overachnachiening press secretary.

Today, the cycle of word generation has been turbocharged to the point that some of its output hardly make. Nowhere is that more evident than a chapter titled “Sticking out your gyat for the rizzler,” a chaotic mélange of slang that is hilarious to middle circisly because it is so illogial to adults. Words and phrases do not need to be understood to go viral –

Aleksic argues that “algospeak” is no longer as simple as swapping sex for “seggs”; It is a linguistic ecosestem in which words rocket from the margins to the mainstream in a matter of days, and something just as fast. When influencyrs modify their vocabulary and speech patterns for maximum visibility, those patterns are reinforced Among their audiences.

Aleksic Said He works hard to keep viewers’ Attention, for example, jumping between camera angles roughly every 8 seconds. He longed for a forum in which discuss his idea at long, and last January, he began refining an idea for a book about algorithms and language.

That is an ambitious goal for a recent college graduate without an advanced degree or decades of research experience, the kinds of quality of the Qualifictions that abound in the linguistics publishing crowd. But youth has ups when it comes to the world of internet slang, Said Gretchen McCulloch, the author of “Secuse Internet: Understanding the new Rules of Language.”

“The tricky thing with internet linguistics is that point at which you’er the most questionable to speak about it from the person is also the point at which you have the last of, sort of, acedemic.” Said in an interview.

She, too, is fascinated by how short-form video is affecting Take the way that influence begin their videos with superlatives like “The most interested things about …” Will those hyperbolic phrases bleed into other other commands of communication, or losen wire? There is a whole graveyard full of internet-sepeak-“on fleek,” you will be missed-that has fallen out of fashion.

While aleksic wades through these big questions, he is also making time for really small ones. He is hoping to make a video about urinal conversations, which have been the subject of more academic papers than you can think. While we spoke, he pulled up his email inbox to scan through the questions that had come in from his followers. (He gets about 10 a day.)

“Somebody emailed me about the word ‘thank’ thanks’ thanks,” “he said, scrolling through a message. “You know, that’s kind of interesting.”