March 4, 2025 • 35 mins
This week, Jamie talks with Adam Aleksik aka The Etymology Nerd about how relying on algorithms to communicate is changing the way we talk and scream at each other, and the inevitability that your nephew is going to grow up to say "seggs" without a shred of irony.
Learn more about Adam's work here: https://www.etymologynerd.com/
Pre-order Algospeak: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/468266/algospeak-by-aleksic-adam/9781529949148
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Coolso media, that's going excusing.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So the Internet is changing the way you talk and
hold people's attention, and it's literally changing the way that
we communicate on a fundamental level.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh okay, you guys didn't like that.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, let's try this delivery of the message instead. The
last year. Okay, for this, you do have to imagine
that I'm doing my makeup effortlessly while openly trauma dumping.
Let's get the music going again.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
The last year, during the peak of my career, I
uprooted my life after getting no fault evicted from my
apartment so two Vegas venture capital dickheads could move in,
which they definitely didn't, and move back to New England
to be with my dad. And the real reason was
that I wanted to date some guy in Maine who
ultimately broke up with me after showing me David Cronenberg's
(01:48):
The Fly, which I think about a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How is that?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Because in certain algorithms,
these two approaches that I just tried makeup trauma dumping
and screaming like there's a bomb in the room, these
two approaches are still the easiest way to get people's
attention in short form algorithms. There's more ways than that, obviously,
(02:13):
but these are kind of the time honored traditions. Personally,
I skew more towards reckless oversharing than Volume one thousand alarmists.
But if you're neither, yeah, you might have a hard
time reaching people on the Internet. Right now, this is
sixteenth Minute, the podcast where most weeks we talk too
and about the Internet's characters of the day, but this
week it's a side quest episode. Today we're going to
(02:36):
speak to a gen Z linguist about how the algorithm
has fundamentally changed language and what the implications of that
might be. And I have to say, I feel so
fucking old talking about this, But the term for these
ways that we communicate to break through to the algorithm
is called algo speak.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Basically, the way we.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Perform for the algorithm in order to capture not even
people's attention necessarily, but the algorithm's attention that delivers our
content to people. We've talked about it a lot on
this show. I've talked to reporters on the subject and
to content creators who are beholden to it. And yeah,
it's easy to dunk on these pretty identifiable passes to
(03:18):
get our attention through speech, through memes, through editing techniques,
through duration of video. But when you're living depends on it,
and the algorithm itself remains opaque.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
What option do.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You have but to play the game start a podcast,
of course, although in a podcast environment that is increasingly
reliant on video clips posted two algorithm spaces like TikTok,
YouTube and Instagram, that's increasingly untrue. But our guest today,
who is both a professional linguist and a hashtag content
hashtag creator, thinks that this is a very important conversation
(03:52):
to have, and I agree because most recently he feels
that it's fundamentally changed the way that our elections are run.
So as a treat here's my conversation with the etymology
Nerd aka Adam Alexic, a Harvard educated linguist who's built
a career across social media platforms talking about linguistics and
(04:13):
more specifically algo speak since he was a teenager.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Babe, Wake Up.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
The Oxford English diction just published their shortlist for the
twenty twenty four Ward of the Year. The top contenders
so far include brain Row, Demuur and Lore, but the
one I've had my eye on the most is slot
for low quality AI generated content.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He's also written a book called Algo Speak, How Social
Media is Transforming the Future of Language that will be
published next year, and he came on to tell us
how the algorithmic communication has and will continue to change
how we understand each other and who our words can reach.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Here's our conversation.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Hi, I'm Adam on the Internet. I'm known as etymology Nerd.
I'm a content creator and a linguist focusing on how
social media is changing language.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I am so glad that you are working on what
you're doing, and that you're a content creator as well.
In my experience, most of what I've se about algorithmic
speak is by people who aren't creating content themselves. It
feels a little disjointed. How did you first get interested
in etymology? Was content creation first?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Was this interest for How did this sort of come
together for you as a career?
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Yeah, what you just said is super interesting because I
don't think you can properly study it unless you're also
in the weeds yourself, Like, unless you're like on TikTok yourself.
You can't like talk about the new TikTok words or
how algorithms are shaping. Like if you feel it as
a creator, you really do feel it, And academic linguistics
is like super far behind. I mean, you need to
make sure a word sticks around, you need to make
(05:35):
sure it works as a research paper or something. And
by the time these guys have all their PhDs, they're
thirty years old and they're not caught up with the
new stuff anymore.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Their internet ancient, right right.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
So my story as I started, I just started with
like an etymology blog. I was talking about word origins
since like tenth grade. So I've been running that for
like a while. Then I was graduating college with a
linguistics degree, and I started having to asked myself the
same question everybody with a linguistics degree ask themselves, which
is like, what do I do now? And that's when
I started making content. And so for about a year
(06:10):
and a half now, I've been making short form videos
on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Yeah, as the.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Atomologineer and done a lot of fun. But I have
felt kind of this interesting balance between my content creator
side and my linguist side, and I keep studying both
myself and every time I'm on social media just consuming
it passively. I also can't really turn off the little
more analytical part, like why are they saying it this way?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Why is it phrasing this way?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You know, I totally agree that actually pay our content
creator yourself is kind of important to understanding it, just
like the internal anxiety of like, if I don't make
this adjustment, I will totally functionally disappear in this space.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And we are ultimately like super subservient to whatever the
whims of the algorithm are. I remember last summer, TikTok
announced that they are now only to be paying people
who make videos longer than a minute. So now all
of our content, which used to be like under a minute,
that's how it started out, subtly, I had to shift
to slightly medium form if that was short form. The
way we're telling our stories changes with that. What's crazy
(07:10):
to me is that, like our stories, our storytelling is
always shaped by the medium in which we communicate. When
we didn't have writing or whatever, we used oral tradition
and we had to rhyme our stories because that was
the only way to remember, like the long chunks of
text like the Odyssey or whatever.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Our stories were shaped by the lack of a written medium.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
And then we have written mediums and we start using chapters,
and we start breaking down things in the subdivision, and
our stories again change. We serialize things with newspapers or
storytelling is changing with our medium. And again now we
are in this algorithmic medium where the way we communicate
is shaped by the algorithm. It's respondent to what the
algorithm awards, and in the end, that's always engagement optimization.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
When it comes to communicating and needing to work around
the algorithm to communicate effectively. Or I guess to the
most people, what are there any common misconceptions that you
see either on the content creation inside or just in
the way that it's perceived by people who don't make
this stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Maybe not a misconception per se, but an interesting miscommunication
that inevitably is going to happen every single time someone
talks to someone on the internet. When I make a video,
I maybe have like an idea of who my audience is.
I like have a general concept of who's going to
consume my video, But in the end, the algorithm is
going to push that to whoever the algorithm pushes to
They might push that to a different audience. They might
(08:25):
push this to a larger or smaller group than I thought,
and maybe a completely different demographic. And so I'm miscommunicating
inherently in what I say. In the algorithmic sense. This
is especially sailing when we think about filter bubbles and
how words can travel, ideas can travel out of echo
chambers and to the broader population when they spread as memes.
(08:47):
It's something that it's very hard to think about because
you consume content and you're like, oh, this was made
for me, and I make content. I think, oh, I'm
making this for whoever's going to consume it. There's a
lot of nodes in this network that are completely lost
when think about what an insane mess social media is.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
If you like zoom out.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Going to your piece a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I really appreciated how you pretty clearly contextualize this communication
shift that you're talking about, and you specifically use the
term viral communication.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Can you tell me a little bit about what that is?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
Yeah, In the past, public communication has always differed from
one to one. Private communication for just having a conversation,
it's just you and me, right, But if I'm speaking
on a soapbox to a crowd. Everybody in the crowd
is going to hear my message, and that's called broadcast communication.
One person broadcasting their message. And traditionally media has had
this type of broadcast communication over the radio. The example
(09:38):
I used in the substack posts you talked about was
FDR during his fireside chats. He would just send his
message out to sixty million Americans. You use it to
dispel misinformation and use it to explain his policies. But
it's one person broadcasting their message to sixty million Americans
at once. There's no scrolling away, there's no sharing this
to another, you know, to a friend. It's just one
(09:58):
person to a bunch of people. And with most media
it's been like that radio television, it's people who tune
in and hear the message. Since the late twenty tens,
we've had a huge shift towards viral communication, which is
a different style away from badcast communication. Viral communication depends
on shares, and it depends on engagement. And if I
send out a message on my TikTok, it's not going
(10:20):
to immediately be seen by sixty million Americans. That'd be crazy,
and no politician can speak like that anymore. Joe Biden, Kamala,
Donald Trump. These people cannot immediately send their message to
six million Americans. They have to rely also on the algorithm.
That means that they have to make their message such
as the algorithm spreads it. And the algorithm is only
going to spread your message if it's good at getting interaction,
if it's good for the platform, because the platforms business
(10:41):
priorities always come first, and their priorities are to keep
you on the app for as long as possible. So
they're going to see if the initial message gets interactions,
gets shares, and then they're going to push it further. Also,
the shares themselves are going to push it. But it's
this sort of structure where instead of a top down
one person to a bunch of people communication, it's one
person to some people to a little more people and
(11:02):
then it spreads from there, but through this network where
more and more people are getting their content from some
previous person up the line who's already consumed it.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
How do we see these algorithms attempt to be gammed
by different candidates and different campaigns. Were there things that
stuck out to you as particularly effective or like oh no,
the whatever the boomers wifted it on this one.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
A lot of the stuff is stuff people have been
worrying about since twenty sixteen, like echo chambers and filter bubbles.
What I said earlier about this audience you think you're
speaking to is not the audience you're speaking to. And
meme based communication I think is also critical, so one
they can build up their core filter bubbles. The Kamala
people had everybody was consuming their Brat videos. Everybody who
was watching Brad videos was voting for Kamla. But no,
none of the Trump supporters were getting that. And all
(11:49):
the Trump supporters are getting completely different style of content
like probably the same people are getting like Haktua and
What's Up Brother videos like more in the Mana sphere
like this kind of entirely different group that the Brat
people are not getting these videos at all. So we
have these like two separate filter bubbles. Occasionally memes do
trickle out and through these filter bubbles, but with memes
always spread ideas. And I really like to say that
(12:12):
language is interchangeable with memes on the Internet, and that's
all interchangeable with metadata too, because whatever the algorithm picks
up as like this is trending. Oh, if Brat is trending,
then it's going to push Brat as a trending thing,
because algorithms push trends to keep you on the app.
And then creators make more Brat content they want to
make a living, and then consumers consume more Brat content,
and so we're in this cycle of it becoming more
and more trendy, and so trends are blown up from
(12:34):
niche communities. Sometimes ideas do stay in these communities, but
sometimes they blow up on a larger scale. And this
is especially important when we're talking about communicating political ideas.
Back in twenty sixteen, we had like Pepe the Frog,
we had all these sort of extremes ideas that like,
you don't understand how crazy it gets at the core
of the filter bubble, like the cats and dogs type
stuff that like people on the firpree don't see on
(12:54):
the on the like the super deep like part of
Facebook where they are spreading these memes that it's not
something like a lot of people and more progressive chambers
are hearing at all, and we're hearing maybe things that
sound a little more sane on the outside but like
deep in the center, like the people who are most
inside this network are getting the Q and on immigrants
eating our pets kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I think for the people outside of that bubble, hearing
that comment for the first time is completely shocking. Where
if you're inside of this separate, algorithmic bubble, it's something
you've been hearing for a while.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
You're in very different chambers.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
And the style of political communication to one audience doesn't
reach a broad audience. So it's sort of a new
style of dog whistling almost where you can expect your
core group to hear this really radical message, let's say,
and then on the outside is more palatable. And if
you're not super deep into the groups.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, are there examples that you can think of of
people It doesn't need to be a politician who have
been able to navigate around this to cut through or
is it just impossible to.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Do at this point?
Speaker 5 (13:57):
It's impossib unless using badcast communication. I think if you're
using viral communication, you need to be communicating in different ways.
I as a creator, I make some videos that I
know aren't going to go viral, but I know that
they're for my core audience who cares about like linguistic passion,
So I make sometimes like more niche linguistic topics that
I think my core audience is going to like, so
I retain my core audience. And then I also make
(14:18):
these broader, relatable videos about language and names. Names are
very popular likes to share to the people who have
this name or whatever, or trends, trending words, things that
get interactions and are pushburger in the algorithm. So I
know ahead of time a lot of times that my
videos are going to do better than other videos. But
I'm making them for different kind of groups. I know
(14:38):
somewhere for my core groups, some are for my outside groups.
In the end, though, I am modifying my speech for
what I think is going to go viral, and I
make videos about things that are trending because I know
that's the best way to reach a bigger audience.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
From a creative standpoint, having to navigate and observe this
constantly changing algorithm, do you find at all creatively invigorating
as someone who who's making stuff all the time. Is
it frustrating?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Are there things?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Because this is something that I have felt at different points,
there are things that I would love to put out
into the world.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
But sometimes you're like, I really.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Think no one would see this just based on what
I've seen cut through totally.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
On a personal level, it's easy to feel frustrated that
I have to conform my speech. I talk in a
different accent online because I know it's like better for
retaining my audience.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I use more extreme language.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I have to sometimes issue nuance, like I can't get
as into the weeds as I would like to get
and sometimes something can be misconstrued.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
I try to present things as best as I can,
but inevitably something will be lost. I do think on
another level, like people always artists throughout history, I've always
had to conform to their medium like but fundamentally, I
do think there are also patterns in what retain human attention,
Like superlative language has always been good for getting our attention.
That's not a new human behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We'll be right back with more of my chat with Adam.
Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I recently realized that one
of my cats is more or less a Ringer visually
(16:24):
and behavior wise, or Donkey from Shrek. Somebody, and here's
the rest of my conversation with Adam Alexic the etymology Nerd.
I want to ask a little bit about specifically about
that the vocal shift, because as I was, I read
that in your piece, but I was like, I want
to understand when you're shifting your voice, what are you
(16:45):
shifting it towards?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
How are you shifting inflection?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
What is like TikTok voice that you've found to be effective.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Well, I call it the influencer accent.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
And there is there's the most stereotype one like the
hey guys, say, I'm doing my makeup routine. There's like
a little up talk there. There's like, uh, maybe sometimes
we'll do a little vocal fry. They'll stress certain words
to keep your attention. Now, I don't do that style.
There are many different styles. That's that's the most like
cliched one. There's I do what I call an educational
influencer action, Like I still I stress certain words, I
(17:15):
sound really excited. I'm gonna talk to you like this
and it's gonna hold your attention for a minute because
that's what I need to do. But also you'll see
people like mister beasts as well. If you look at
any mister Beast video, this man does not speak like
that in real life, not even close, and like he's.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Also gonna exaggerate. Everything's gonna say, I just built this
huge island. I'd throw a bunch of influencers on like
it's gonna talk like this, right.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
These are all different accents, but all geared to getting
your attention, and there are some similarities.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They'll they're typically used up talk.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
You hang on every last word because it sounds like
it's unfinished, so he keeps going and you want to
hear most. I'm gonna I'm still gonna stress certain words
because if your attention starts to drift and I say
something that sounds important, you're gonna lock back in and
you're less likely to scroll away. Yeah, the influencer actions
would coming in different styles. All kind of do evolve
(18:02):
out of this attempt to hold on to your attention.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
When I returned to old content that I like, like
for example, if I'm going back to a like YouTube
video essay that I enjoyed five years ago, it sounds different,
the length is different, the delivery is different, the visuals
that you would see a lot around that time are different,
and it is like you're saying an extension of art
but it feels fascinating that you're like, oh, if this
(18:28):
came out today, I don't know, you know, if it
ever would.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Have reached me.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Mister Beasts just one of his employees leaked a manual
about a month ago of like is like Mister Beast's
Handbook to succeeding in Mister Beasts productions, And it was
this book he wrote for his employees about like how
he goes viral, and I found it fascinating both on
linguistic level and as a creator again kind of looking
at this from both lenses. But he explicitly mentioned in
the book that he wants to make things as extreme
(18:54):
as possible. He wants to constantly he talks about retention
so much. Every single page talks about re multiple times,
because that is the one thing you really need to
hold on to the audience. And then then YouTube's going
to push the video to more people. So it's like
this kind of top level. You hit your first group,
you retain that audience, and then YouTube's like, oh, people
like this, so they send it to more people and
(19:14):
that's viral communication.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Again, mister Piece is so diabolical, it's he's quite scary.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
He's very intentional with it.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
It's like he's yeah, like you read the handbook, and
I mean, any I'm manipulating you. Any creator is manipulating you.
If we're going viral, that means we are playing with
your emotions and your attention. The only way to get
attention is to do that. Like as if I say
this is the best something, this is the most interesting something.
That's usually how I start my videos, like with some
kind of crazy claim like that, and then that manipulates
you a little bit because you're like, wow, the best something.
(19:41):
I mean, there's a lot of interesting somethings, but only
one thing can be the most interesting something. So now
now I hooked you by playing with the psychological thing
that all humans have.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
That's another sort of shift I've noticed in my own
media consumption habits over over time, where even if it's
a creator I really like, usually I will not ignore,
but like assume that how they open the video is
probably exaggerated or not true something that you're like, okay,
I trust that they'll get to the nuance, but that
can't be right, right.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
It's a it's a bit of a deal with a
doubt because like if I mean I at least feel
like I'm trying to make good content. I feel like
a lot of people also feel that. But you cannot
be successfuls and influenci unless you somewhat play into these things.
And I mean on a personal level, I just try
to strike a balance where I do, like try to
cite my sources in my video. I do try to
like not make like actually fake claims, but just maybe
(20:34):
have purplyized like slightly to the point of where I'm
still not like misinforming. But it's it's it's something I
think about frequently and as I consume other media and
think about that a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
When you are because you're creating content on multiple platforms,
do you change your presentation from platform to platform?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
If so, what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Great question?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
So for tik talk and Instagram, I'm just posting like
the same one minute video across all platforms. Most creators
do that for like the short videos, so there's a
lot of similarity between those three platforms. I'm branching onto
long form YouTube, where I do speak a little more
relaxed and have.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Less of this feeling of pressure.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
And I also spend a lot of time recently writing
on substack and I just finished writing a book, and
these are super long form and I can really nuance
my thoughts, and I think it's most authentic to how
I actually want to communicate. But even for books, I modify,
like I use maybe more correct English grammar whatever that means,
but less less like colloquial slang usage than I might
use in a video. And the slang usage is actually
(21:32):
maybe more authentic to how I speak casually. So there
are each medium does constrain you in different ways, and
that's I don't want to be too alarmist about this.
I don't want to come in and say like, this
is the end of the English language that like every
languist tries to tell people, it's never going to be
the ying.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
That way to start the video, right, which is this
the end.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Of the English language is yeah, let's find.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Out that that is actually One of the few things
I do find creatively interest is like, if I have
to express this idea in three different ways, can I
do it effectively in three different ways?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
That's like one of the elements I find a little
more fun.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
I really like about the Internet is that it has
democratized to public communication. So in the past, like I
mentioned FDR because the few examples we have of people
who really were using broadcast communication were the elites, like
the politicians, the reporters, the people who all went through
like elite universities or whatever, who all have like fancy jobs.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
These are the only people who are able to communicate you.
In the past.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And since YouTube, since now, especially now in short form
video platforms, anybody has this platform, the elites no longer
control communication, and in that sense, there's less maybe manufacturing
consent of what media you're getting. There's more people criticizing
the governing, which I think.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Is a good thing.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I think that's our democratization seems pretty good to me.
And on another level, on the linguistic level, there's less
of that formalization of language because when language is controlled
by elites, they're going to impose their grammatical rules, like oh,
you have to capitalize this or not use this word
or whatever. On TikTok, people just talk how they authentically
talk a little bit closer to that. At least, there
there's more slang words happening because of that, because they
(23:12):
feel like they're able to use the language that they
want to use, and I think that's pretty great, so
again for pros and cons here, I do think it's
not universally categorically bad.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The way that you closed your piece that what you
cited a speech that I had not heard of but
on paper is incredibly weird because you know, you say.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Adam, the stigmas of Australia, the government is best Australian
senator who like used brainwrot words in her speech about
how this government is capping and then she urges you
(23:51):
to vote for a government with more aura. But like,
let's look at why she's using that language. She's using
that language because she knows that clip of her is
going to go viral. It's very clever in her part
and it did. It did go super viral and multiple
platforms because she used this kind of language which evokes like,
which gets shares, which like gets people's attention, so paradoxically,
(24:14):
like it feeds back into itself.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
That's so rare.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
A shout out to the twenty two year old that
almost certainly wrote that we are constantly presented with the
idea of the in the US in particular, and there's
truth to it, but I feel like it's more complicated
based on what you're describing that, you know, politics are
getting crazier or politics are getting.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Weirder or worse.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But I think what your work sort of indicates is sure,
that may be true, but also there is some strategy
to behaving in a more elevated way if you want
to get your message to anybody, like you can't really.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Be boring, right, But it's an underline, like I do
keep coming back to this thing with any linguistic change
that I writer talk about, that these are still underlying
human behaviors.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
We're still humans.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
That's not changed, right, And humans always going to adapt
to their medium, and they're always going to be using
language in new ways and changing it. And we're just
doing that in a new way, which is short form video,
And that is worth talking about because because it does
somewhat change.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Your language as well.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Emergently, it's caused new words to emerge faster, and it's
caused memes to come and go quicker than they used to.
So like a word might be popular, like demurre was
popular for like a week, and then it was like,
at least in my circles, it's not being used. I
talked to my my ten year old cousin the other
(25:36):
day and she and her friends all say demure still,
and I couldn't help thinking about the filter bubble thing that,
like maybe I was in the initial filter bubble of
who like Jules Lebron was talking to when she started
making the demure videos, but now it's filtered down to
middle schoolers, and middle schoolers are they're not consuming that content,
but they're getting it from people who are using it,
(25:56):
and so like it trickles down almost to all the people.
So words and ideas the same. This is also like
an idea spreading with that. And I talked to my
twelve year old male causin he was talking about sigmas
and I don't know that word emerged out of the
man of spherest so like, I don't think he's like
getting like black filled here. But it is like interesting
(26:17):
how these ideas and words travel through networks and filter
down to children. And that's maybe something I'm a little
concerned about. But also the words themselves I've just dressed
are not bad maybe just yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, it's it's definitely a double edged sword.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I think I have a tendency to be a bit
of an algorithm alarmist, partially in the way it causes
people to communicate, but also just the opaqueness of it.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Absolutely, the opaqueness is something that that constantly just really
deeply frustrates me as a creator. Instagram doesn't give you
customer support unless you've purchased metaverified. TikTok doesn't tell you
anything nless you're in their special like secret TikTok program.
Even so, like they don't communicate to creators really what
their expectations are. They might just take down a video
or they might just whatever. So creators are like especially
afraid to take on the algorithm. And that's like how
(27:04):
we get outgo speak like words like unlive instead of
like suicide or something because you're afraid it. But like
you can still say the word suicide. Just the algorithm
might suppress your video, it might not. They don't even
tell you we're getting like productive language changed happening because
of people being afraid of the algorithm or people trying
to hijack the algorithm in ways that they they might
might work, might not even work. But if you start
by using a certain word, like you say Sigmas of Australia,
(27:28):
that probably is gonna better for the algorithm. But it's
also gonna perpetuate the word stigma, and then maybe my
my twelve year old cousin starts using it. Personally, I
try to also not use algorithms as much as possible.
I don't like how Spotify pushes the same trending song
every time I finish a playlist, so I've turned off
the AutoPlay. I don't like like on TikTok. I sometimes
get like a video of like somebody playing jazz, and
I really like listening to jazz, but I feel this
(27:50):
urge to scroll away, and I ask myself, what is
this urge coming for my Because my brain wants the
dopamine hit It was slightly better next video, So I've
been sort of trying to train myself to stop and
listen to the jazz video. In its entirety, it is
rough because we are kind of getting trained to have
shorter attention spans, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The algo speak is also something I find really fascinating
and also seems to have shifted as time goes on.
I don't you know fault any creator for having to
use it, but it is it is interesting to me
in terms like unalive terms like particularly grape always really
rubs me the wrong way, but weirdly ends up. It
(28:41):
feels like kind of minimizing very serious things and almost
like suppressing or not encouraging people to talk about, you know,
serious issues.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I absolutely think that there is sort of a trend
towards infantile language when we use replacement vocabulary, so like
look at eggs instead of sex, or I do think
great instead of.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I do think.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Like a lot of are on alive sounds a little
more childish than suicide, right, so, I think. But it's
because a lot of these words are coming out of
memes which are made by young people, and young people
like using kind of fun sounding childish language. There is
a whole separate debate about whether or not this is
good or bad. I've talked to a lot of middle
school teachers and guidance counselors about unlive, and some of
(29:25):
them feel like, yeah, they're not able to talk about
the serious topic, which is concerning, But other people are saying, actually,
it's opening up conversations. It's allowing middle schoolers to Some
middle schoolers are learning the word on alive before the
word suicide, and it's allowing them to have these conversations,
especially when they're using the word as a genuine euphemism.
Sixty percent of the middle school teachers I talk to
are say that their kids are using on alive primarily
(29:48):
as the euphemism for when they don't want to use kill.
So I one teacher said, the students submitted an essay
on Hamlet unliving himself, and another one had a classroom
discussion the unliving that happens in Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde.
Kids genuinely think this is like a serious euphemism for
kill that sounds maybe nicer. Say so, like, we're seeing
this online speak turn into the offline. And I actually
(30:09):
the title of my book which is coming out it
is I'll go speak how social media is changing a
language that's that's available now, and I talk about a
lot more.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That is really fascinating to me. And in a way
that you're like, that's just a lateral language shift. That's
pretty interesting that in twenty years you could you could
have someone in public office saying on alive and be
totally serious.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
I think we're joking about it now. I'm very sure
that it's going to be a thing.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That is really fascinating and an interesting way to sort
of accelerate the growth of how we use language, how
we talk, like how we talk about very serious issues.
And then there's the cynical part of me that it's
like it will never feel normal for me to hear
of forty five year old man say SIGs.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I just never want to hear it.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It's definitely the future.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
So I know it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I love love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
I think there's a lot of kind of Poe terminosity
with the memes and the metadata and the language, which
I keep trying to spread this message that they are
the same thing. Now, Like Riz trended last year because
it was a hashtag, like or not necessarily a hashtag,
but like the audio, like the algorithm picked up on
(31:17):
that as a trending term. So it is metadata and
creators are using it because they know it's a piece
of trending metadata. But it's also a meme at the
same time, it's like a funny riz meme whatever, and
then but it's also a word. So the word is
the meme is the piece of information for the algorithm,
and they love categorizing us, they love tagging us. That's
I think there's been a lot of new words for
categorizing ourselves and our identities, whether it's like cottage, core, unquoquette,
(31:39):
or like all these new micro labels all also emerge
out of the algorithm trying to find more information about
us and then turning those into trends, which are also words.
So it's all kind of connected to itself in that way.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
My last question for you, this is a podcast about
main characters of the Internet, which is I feel like
an increasingly challenging and rare phenomenon to sort of nail
down because of, like you're saying, how quickly the algorithm
tends to move. Now, So with regards to this show,
I mean, because you spend so much time professionally and
(32:13):
academically within the algorithm, do you feel that we will
continue to get Internet main characters in the way we
once did? Will that change? How do you Where do
you see that going?
Speaker 5 (32:24):
I think it's fascinating that you're putting this emphasis on
the main character. I think there's been a trend towards
the Internet's trying to make you feel like you're the
main character of the time. It's narrativizing. It's it's like,
when why are all these memes starting with PUOV. They're
inviting you to experience something firsthand. That's why we talk
about why we're in our era for something, why this
(32:44):
is something like we're explaining our lore, We're explaining our
you know something arc but like we tend to serialize
our own lives and pretend like we have this main
character syndrome, like we're going on side quests.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Really, I think all our lives are kind of meaningless, but.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
It feels good to not think that, which is why
the algorithm has been pushing stuff that makes you feel good,
makes you interact with the content and share more. So
I think the reason we're all I think we're all
going to be main characters in our heads because that's
what the Internet is telling us.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
WHOA Well you heard it here first everyone, you are,
in fact the main character. Thank you so much to Adam,
who you can find everywhere. He's got over half a
million followers on TikTok, a million on Instagram, half a
million on YouTube. This guy knows his damn Algo to
follow him to keep learning more, and you can also
(33:36):
pre order his book now.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
At the link in the description.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And next week we begin our next deep dive into
the era of personified brands. I'm talking Denny's being the
most popular girl on Tumblr. I'm talking Wendy's Twitter feuds
of the twenty tens. I'm talking woke stakums during COVID.
I'm talking the duo lingo bird getting murdered for clout
(34:02):
a couple weeks ago. How did American marketing arrive at
a language at bird swimming and piss the bone? Chilling
history starts next week. See you then, please don't say segs.
And for your moment of fun, here is that brain WRT.
Australian politicians speech. Adam and I were talking about from
(34:24):
Fatima payment to.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
The Sigmas of Australia. I say that this goofy air
government have been capping not just now, but for a
long time. A few of you may remember when they
said there'll be no phantom tax under the government.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I lead.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
They're kappa holics.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
They're also y apoholics. They yap NonStop about how their
cost of living measures are changing lives for all Australians.
Just put the fries in the bag, little bro. They
tell us that they're locked in on improving the housing
situation in this country. They must have brain rot from
watching too much Kai Sinat and forgot about their plans
(35:01):
to ban social media for kids under fourteen.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and
iHeart Radiops. It is written, hosted, and produced by me
Jamie Rostis. Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans.
The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is
from the brand creator and Pet. Shout outs to our
(35:30):
dog producer Anderson, my Kats, Flee and Casper, and by
Pet Rothbert who will outlive us all Bye.
Coolso media, that's going excusing.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So the Internet is changing the way you talk and
hold people's attention, and it's literally changing the way that
we communicate on a fundamental level.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh okay, you guys didn't like that.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, let's try this delivery of the message instead. The
last year. Okay, for this, you do have to imagine
that I'm doing my makeup effortlessly while openly trauma dumping.
Let's get the music going again.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
The last year, during the peak of my career, I
uprooted my life after getting no fault evicted from my
apartment so two Vegas venture capital dickheads could move in,
which they definitely didn't, and move back to New England
to be with my dad. And the real reason was
that I wanted to date some guy in Maine who
ultimately broke up with me after showing me David Cronenberg's
(01:48):
The Fly, which I think about a lot.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
How is that?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Because in certain algorithms,
these two approaches that I just tried makeup trauma dumping
and screaming like there's a bomb in the room, these
two approaches are still the easiest way to get people's
attention in short form algorithms. There's more ways than that, obviously,
(02:13):
but these are kind of the time honored traditions. Personally,
I skew more towards reckless oversharing than Volume one thousand alarmists.
But if you're neither, yeah, you might have a hard
time reaching people on the Internet. Right now, this is
sixteenth Minute, the podcast where most weeks we talk too
and about the Internet's characters of the day, but this
week it's a side quest episode. Today we're going to
(02:36):
speak to a gen Z linguist about how the algorithm
has fundamentally changed language and what the implications of that
might be. And I have to say, I feel so
fucking old talking about this, But the term for these
ways that we communicate to break through to the algorithm
is called algo speak.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Basically, the way we.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Perform for the algorithm in order to capture not even
people's attention necessarily, but the algorithm's attention that delivers our
content to people. We've talked about it a lot on
this show. I've talked to reporters on the subject and
to content creators who are beholden to it. And yeah,
it's easy to dunk on these pretty identifiable passes to
(03:18):
get our attention through speech, through memes, through editing techniques,
through duration of video. But when you're living depends on it,
and the algorithm itself remains opaque.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
What option do.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
You have but to play the game start a podcast,
of course, although in a podcast environment that is increasingly
reliant on video clips posted two algorithm spaces like TikTok,
YouTube and Instagram, that's increasingly untrue. But our guest today,
who is both a professional linguist and a hashtag content
hashtag creator, thinks that this is a very important conversation
(03:52):
to have, and I agree because most recently he feels
that it's fundamentally changed the way that our elections are run.
So as a treat here's my conversation with the etymology
Nerd aka Adam Alexic, a Harvard educated linguist who's built
a career across social media platforms talking about linguistics and
(04:13):
more specifically algo speak since he was a teenager.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Babe, Wake Up.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
The Oxford English diction just published their shortlist for the
twenty twenty four Ward of the Year. The top contenders
so far include brain Row, Demuur and Lore, but the
one I've had my eye on the most is slot
for low quality AI generated content.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
He's also written a book called Algo Speak, How Social
Media is Transforming the Future of Language that will be
published next year, and he came on to tell us
how the algorithmic communication has and will continue to change
how we understand each other and who our words can reach.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Here's our conversation.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Hi, I'm Adam on the Internet. I'm known as etymology Nerd.
I'm a content creator and a linguist focusing on how
social media is changing language.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I am so glad that you are working on what
you're doing, and that you're a content creator as well.
In my experience, most of what I've se about algorithmic
speak is by people who aren't creating content themselves. It
feels a little disjointed. How did you first get interested
in etymology? Was content creation first?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Was this interest for How did this sort of come
together for you as a career?
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Right?
Speaker 5 (05:14):
Yeah, what you just said is super interesting because I
don't think you can properly study it unless you're also
in the weeds yourself, Like, unless you're like on TikTok yourself.
You can't like talk about the new TikTok words or
how algorithms are shaping. Like if you feel it as
a creator, you really do feel it, And academic linguistics
is like super far behind. I mean, you need to
make sure a word sticks around, you need to make
(05:35):
sure it works as a research paper or something. And
by the time these guys have all their PhDs, they're
thirty years old and they're not caught up with the
new stuff anymore.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Their internet ancient, right right.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
So my story as I started, I just started with
like an etymology blog. I was talking about word origins
since like tenth grade. So I've been running that for
like a while. Then I was graduating college with a
linguistics degree, and I started having to asked myself the
same question everybody with a linguistics degree ask themselves, which
is like, what do I do now? And that's when
I started making content. And so for about a year
(06:10):
and a half now, I've been making short form videos
on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Yeah, as the.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Atomologineer and done a lot of fun. But I have
felt kind of this interesting balance between my content creator
side and my linguist side, and I keep studying both
myself and every time I'm on social media just consuming
it passively. I also can't really turn off the little
more analytical part, like why are they saying it this way?
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Why is it phrasing this way?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You know, I totally agree that actually pay our content
creator yourself is kind of important to understanding it, just
like the internal anxiety of like, if I don't make
this adjustment, I will totally functionally disappear in this space.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
And we are ultimately like super subservient to whatever the
whims of the algorithm are. I remember last summer, TikTok
announced that they are now only to be paying people
who make videos longer than a minute. So now all
of our content, which used to be like under a minute,
that's how it started out, subtly, I had to shift
to slightly medium form if that was short form. The
way we're telling our stories changes with that. What's crazy
(07:10):
to me is that, like our stories, our storytelling is
always shaped by the medium in which we communicate. When
we didn't have writing or whatever, we used oral tradition
and we had to rhyme our stories because that was
the only way to remember, like the long chunks of
text like the Odyssey or whatever.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Our stories were shaped by the lack of a written medium.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
And then we have written mediums and we start using chapters,
and we start breaking down things in the subdivision, and
our stories again change. We serialize things with newspapers or
storytelling is changing with our medium. And again now we
are in this algorithmic medium where the way we communicate
is shaped by the algorithm. It's respondent to what the
algorithm awards, and in the end, that's always engagement optimization.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
When it comes to communicating and needing to work around
the algorithm to communicate effectively. Or I guess to the
most people, what are there any common misconceptions that you
see either on the content creation inside or just in
the way that it's perceived by people who don't make
this stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Maybe not a misconception per se, but an interesting miscommunication
that inevitably is going to happen every single time someone
talks to someone on the internet. When I make a video,
I maybe have like an idea of who my audience is.
I like have a general concept of who's going to
consume my video, But in the end, the algorithm is
going to push that to whoever the algorithm pushes to
They might push that to a different audience. They might
(08:25):
push this to a larger or smaller group than I thought,
and maybe a completely different demographic. And so I'm miscommunicating
inherently in what I say. In the algorithmic sense. This
is especially sailing when we think about filter bubbles and
how words can travel, ideas can travel out of echo
chambers and to the broader population when they spread as memes.
(08:47):
It's something that it's very hard to think about because
you consume content and you're like, oh, this was made
for me, and I make content. I think, oh, I'm
making this for whoever's going to consume it. There's a
lot of nodes in this network that are completely lost
when think about what an insane mess social media is.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
If you like zoom out.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Going to your piece a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I really appreciated how you pretty clearly contextualize this communication
shift that you're talking about, and you specifically use the
term viral communication.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Can you tell me a little bit about what that is?
Speaker 5 (09:16):
Yeah, In the past, public communication has always differed from
one to one. Private communication for just having a conversation,
it's just you and me, right, But if I'm speaking
on a soapbox to a crowd. Everybody in the crowd
is going to hear my message, and that's called broadcast communication.
One person broadcasting their message. And traditionally media has had
this type of broadcast communication over the radio. The example
(09:38):
I used in the substack posts you talked about was
FDR during his fireside chats. He would just send his
message out to sixty million Americans. You use it to
dispel misinformation and use it to explain his policies. But
it's one person broadcasting their message to sixty million Americans
at once. There's no scrolling away, there's no sharing this
to another, you know, to a friend. It's just one
(09:58):
person to a bunch of people. And with most media
it's been like that radio television, it's people who tune
in and hear the message. Since the late twenty tens,
we've had a huge shift towards viral communication, which is
a different style away from badcast communication. Viral communication depends
on shares, and it depends on engagement. And if I
send out a message on my TikTok, it's not going
(10:20):
to immediately be seen by sixty million Americans. That'd be crazy,
and no politician can speak like that anymore. Joe Biden, Kamala,
Donald Trump. These people cannot immediately send their message to
six million Americans. They have to rely also on the algorithm.
That means that they have to make their message such
as the algorithm spreads it. And the algorithm is only
going to spread your message if it's good at getting interaction,
if it's good for the platform, because the platforms business
(10:41):
priorities always come first, and their priorities are to keep
you on the app for as long as possible. So
they're going to see if the initial message gets interactions,
gets shares, and then they're going to push it further. Also,
the shares themselves are going to push it. But it's
this sort of structure where instead of a top down
one person to a bunch of people communication, it's one
person to some people to a little more people and
(11:02):
then it spreads from there, but through this network where
more and more people are getting their content from some
previous person up the line who's already consumed it.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
How do we see these algorithms attempt to be gammed
by different candidates and different campaigns. Were there things that
stuck out to you as particularly effective or like oh no,
the whatever the boomers wifted it on this one.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
A lot of the stuff is stuff people have been
worrying about since twenty sixteen, like echo chambers and filter bubbles.
What I said earlier about this audience you think you're
speaking to is not the audience you're speaking to. And
meme based communication I think is also critical, so one
they can build up their core filter bubbles. The Kamala
people had everybody was consuming their Brat videos. Everybody who
was watching Brad videos was voting for Kamla. But no,
none of the Trump supporters were getting that. And all
(11:49):
the Trump supporters are getting completely different style of content
like probably the same people are getting like Haktua and
What's Up Brother videos like more in the Mana sphere
like this kind of entirely different group that the Brat
people are not getting these videos at all. So we
have these like two separate filter bubbles. Occasionally memes do
trickle out and through these filter bubbles, but with memes
always spread ideas. And I really like to say that
(12:12):
language is interchangeable with memes on the Internet, and that's
all interchangeable with metadata too, because whatever the algorithm picks
up as like this is trending. Oh, if Brat is trending,
then it's going to push Brat as a trending thing,
because algorithms push trends to keep you on the app.
And then creators make more Brat content they want to
make a living, and then consumers consume more Brat content,
and so we're in this cycle of it becoming more
and more trendy, and so trends are blown up from
(12:34):
niche communities. Sometimes ideas do stay in these communities, but
sometimes they blow up on a larger scale. And this
is especially important when we're talking about communicating political ideas.
Back in twenty sixteen, we had like Pepe the Frog,
we had all these sort of extremes ideas that like,
you don't understand how crazy it gets at the core
of the filter bubble, like the cats and dogs type
stuff that like people on the firpree don't see on
(12:54):
the on the like the super deep like part of
Facebook where they are spreading these memes that it's not
something like a lot of people and more progressive chambers
are hearing at all, and we're hearing maybe things that
sound a little more sane on the outside but like
deep in the center, like the people who are most
inside this network are getting the Q and on immigrants
eating our pets kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I think for the people outside of that bubble, hearing
that comment for the first time is completely shocking. Where
if you're inside of this separate, algorithmic bubble, it's something
you've been hearing for a while.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
You're in very different chambers.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
And the style of political communication to one audience doesn't
reach a broad audience. So it's sort of a new
style of dog whistling almost where you can expect your
core group to hear this really radical message, let's say,
and then on the outside is more palatable. And if
you're not super deep into the groups.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, are there examples that you can think of of
people It doesn't need to be a politician who have
been able to navigate around this to cut through or
is it just impossible to.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Do at this point?
Speaker 5 (13:57):
It's impossib unless using badcast communication. I think if you're
using viral communication, you need to be communicating in different ways.
I as a creator, I make some videos that I
know aren't going to go viral, but I know that
they're for my core audience who cares about like linguistic passion,
So I make sometimes like more niche linguistic topics that
I think my core audience is going to like, so
I retain my core audience. And then I also make
(14:18):
these broader, relatable videos about language and names. Names are
very popular likes to share to the people who have
this name or whatever, or trends, trending words, things that
get interactions and are pushburger in the algorithm. So I
know ahead of time a lot of times that my
videos are going to do better than other videos. But
I'm making them for different kind of groups. I know
(14:38):
somewhere for my core groups, some are for my outside groups.
In the end, though, I am modifying my speech for
what I think is going to go viral, and I
make videos about things that are trending because I know
that's the best way to reach a bigger audience.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
From a creative standpoint, having to navigate and observe this
constantly changing algorithm, do you find at all creatively invigorating
as someone who who's making stuff all the time. Is
it frustrating?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Are there things?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Because this is something that I have felt at different points,
there are things that I would love to put out
into the world.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
But sometimes you're like, I really.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Think no one would see this just based on what
I've seen cut through totally.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
On a personal level, it's easy to feel frustrated that
I have to conform my speech. I talk in a
different accent online because I know it's like better for
retaining my audience.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I use more extreme language.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
I have to sometimes issue nuance, like I can't get
as into the weeds as I would like to get
and sometimes something can be misconstrued.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
I try to present things as best as I can,
but inevitably something will be lost. I do think on
another level, like people always artists throughout history, I've always
had to conform to their medium like but fundamentally, I
do think there are also patterns in what retain human attention,
Like superlative language has always been good for getting our attention.
That's not a new human behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We'll be right back with more of my chat with Adam.
Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I recently realized that one
of my cats is more or less a Ringer visually
(16:24):
and behavior wise, or Donkey from Shrek. Somebody, and here's
the rest of my conversation with Adam Alexic the etymology Nerd.
I want to ask a little bit about specifically about
that the vocal shift, because as I was, I read
that in your piece, but I was like, I want
to understand when you're shifting your voice, what are you
(16:45):
shifting it towards?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
How are you shifting inflection?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
What is like TikTok voice that you've found to be effective.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Well, I call it the influencer accent.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
And there is there's the most stereotype one like the
hey guys, say, I'm doing my makeup routine. There's like
a little up talk there. There's like, uh, maybe sometimes
we'll do a little vocal fry. They'll stress certain words
to keep your attention. Now, I don't do that style.
There are many different styles. That's that's the most like
cliched one. There's I do what I call an educational
influencer action, Like I still I stress certain words, I
(17:15):
sound really excited. I'm gonna talk to you like this
and it's gonna hold your attention for a minute because
that's what I need to do. But also you'll see
people like mister beasts as well. If you look at
any mister Beast video, this man does not speak like
that in real life, not even close, and like he's.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Also gonna exaggerate. Everything's gonna say, I just built this
huge island. I'd throw a bunch of influencers on like
it's gonna talk like this, right.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
These are all different accents, but all geared to getting
your attention, and there are some similarities.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They'll they're typically used up talk.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
You hang on every last word because it sounds like
it's unfinished, so he keeps going and you want to
hear most. I'm gonna I'm still gonna stress certain words
because if your attention starts to drift and I say
something that sounds important, you're gonna lock back in and
you're less likely to scroll away. Yeah, the influencer actions
would coming in different styles. All kind of do evolve
(18:02):
out of this attempt to hold on to your attention.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
When I returned to old content that I like, like
for example, if I'm going back to a like YouTube
video essay that I enjoyed five years ago, it sounds different,
the length is different, the delivery is different, the visuals
that you would see a lot around that time are different,
and it is like you're saying an extension of art
but it feels fascinating that you're like, oh, if this
(18:28):
came out today, I don't know, you know, if it
ever would.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Have reached me.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Mister Beasts just one of his employees leaked a manual
about a month ago of like is like Mister Beast's
Handbook to succeeding in Mister Beasts productions, And it was
this book he wrote for his employees about like how
he goes viral, and I found it fascinating both on
linguistic level and as a creator again kind of looking
at this from both lenses. But he explicitly mentioned in
the book that he wants to make things as extreme
(18:54):
as possible. He wants to constantly he talks about retention
so much. Every single page talks about re multiple times,
because that is the one thing you really need to
hold on to the audience. And then then YouTube's going
to push the video to more people. So it's like
this kind of top level. You hit your first group,
you retain that audience, and then YouTube's like, oh, people
like this, so they send it to more people and
(19:14):
that's viral communication.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Again, mister Piece is so diabolical, it's he's quite scary.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
He's very intentional with it.
Speaker 5 (19:20):
It's like he's yeah, like you read the handbook, and
I mean, any I'm manipulating you. Any creator is manipulating you.
If we're going viral, that means we are playing with
your emotions and your attention. The only way to get
attention is to do that. Like as if I say
this is the best something, this is the most interesting something.
That's usually how I start my videos, like with some
kind of crazy claim like that, and then that manipulates
you a little bit because you're like, wow, the best something.
(19:41):
I mean, there's a lot of interesting somethings, but only
one thing can be the most interesting something. So now
now I hooked you by playing with the psychological thing
that all humans have.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
That's another sort of shift I've noticed in my own
media consumption habits over over time, where even if it's
a creator I really like, usually I will not ignore,
but like assume that how they open the video is
probably exaggerated or not true something that you're like, okay,
I trust that they'll get to the nuance, but that
can't be right, right.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
It's a it's a bit of a deal with a
doubt because like if I mean I at least feel
like I'm trying to make good content. I feel like
a lot of people also feel that. But you cannot
be successfuls and influenci unless you somewhat play into these things.
And I mean on a personal level, I just try
to strike a balance where I do, like try to
cite my sources in my video. I do try to
like not make like actually fake claims, but just maybe
(20:34):
have purplyized like slightly to the point of where I'm
still not like misinforming. But it's it's it's something I
think about frequently and as I consume other media and
think about that a lot.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
When you are because you're creating content on multiple platforms,
do you change your presentation from platform to platform?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
If so, what does that look like?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Great question?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
So for tik talk and Instagram, I'm just posting like
the same one minute video across all platforms. Most creators
do that for like the short videos, so there's a
lot of similarity between those three platforms. I'm branching onto
long form YouTube, where I do speak a little more
relaxed and have.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Less of this feeling of pressure.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
And I also spend a lot of time recently writing
on substack and I just finished writing a book, and
these are super long form and I can really nuance
my thoughts, and I think it's most authentic to how
I actually want to communicate. But even for books, I modify,
like I use maybe more correct English grammar whatever that means,
but less less like colloquial slang usage than I might
use in a video. And the slang usage is actually
(21:32):
maybe more authentic to how I speak casually. So there
are each medium does constrain you in different ways, and
that's I don't want to be too alarmist about this.
I don't want to come in and say like, this
is the end of the English language that like every
languist tries to tell people, it's never going to be
the ying.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
That way to start the video, right, which is this
the end.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Of the English language is yeah, let's find.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Out that that is actually One of the few things
I do find creatively interest is like, if I have
to express this idea in three different ways, can I
do it effectively in three different ways?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
That's like one of the elements I find a little
more fun.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
I really like about the Internet is that it has
democratized to public communication. So in the past, like I
mentioned FDR because the few examples we have of people
who really were using broadcast communication were the elites, like
the politicians, the reporters, the people who all went through
like elite universities or whatever, who all have like fancy jobs.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
These are the only people who are able to communicate you.
In the past.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
And since YouTube, since now, especially now in short form
video platforms, anybody has this platform, the elites no longer
control communication, and in that sense, there's less maybe manufacturing
consent of what media you're getting. There's more people criticizing
the governing, which I think.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Is a good thing.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
I think that's our democratization seems pretty good to me.
And on another level, on the linguistic level, there's less
of that formalization of language because when language is controlled
by elites, they're going to impose their grammatical rules, like oh,
you have to capitalize this or not use this word
or whatever. On TikTok, people just talk how they authentically
talk a little bit closer to that. At least, there
there's more slang words happening because of that, because they
(23:12):
feel like they're able to use the language that they
want to use, and I think that's pretty great, so
again for pros and cons here, I do think it's
not universally categorically bad.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
The way that you closed your piece that what you
cited a speech that I had not heard of but
on paper is incredibly weird because you know, you say.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
Adam, the stigmas of Australia, the government is best Australian
senator who like used brainwrot words in her speech about
how this government is capping and then she urges you
(23:51):
to vote for a government with more aura. But like,
let's look at why she's using that language. She's using
that language because she knows that clip of her is
going to go viral. It's very clever in her part
and it did. It did go super viral and multiple
platforms because she used this kind of language which evokes like,
which gets shares, which like gets people's attention, so paradoxically,
(24:14):
like it feeds back into itself.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
That's so rare.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
A shout out to the twenty two year old that
almost certainly wrote that we are constantly presented with the
idea of the in the US in particular, and there's
truth to it, but I feel like it's more complicated
based on what you're describing that, you know, politics are
getting crazier or politics are getting.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Weirder or worse.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But I think what your work sort of indicates is sure,
that may be true, but also there is some strategy
to behaving in a more elevated way if you want
to get your message to anybody, like you can't really.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
Be boring, right, But it's an underline, like I do
keep coming back to this thing with any linguistic change
that I writer talk about, that these are still underlying
human behaviors.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
We're still humans.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
That's not changed, right, And humans always going to adapt
to their medium, and they're always going to be using
language in new ways and changing it. And we're just
doing that in a new way, which is short form video,
And that is worth talking about because because it does
somewhat change.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Your language as well.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
Emergently, it's caused new words to emerge faster, and it's
caused memes to come and go quicker than they used to.
So like a word might be popular, like demurre was
popular for like a week, and then it was like,
at least in my circles, it's not being used. I
talked to my my ten year old cousin the other
(25:36):
day and she and her friends all say demure still,
and I couldn't help thinking about the filter bubble thing that,
like maybe I was in the initial filter bubble of
who like Jules Lebron was talking to when she started
making the demure videos, but now it's filtered down to
middle schoolers, and middle schoolers are they're not consuming that content,
but they're getting it from people who are using it,
(25:56):
and so like it trickles down almost to all the people.
So words and ideas the same. This is also like
an idea spreading with that. And I talked to my
twelve year old male causin he was talking about sigmas
and I don't know that word emerged out of the
man of spherest so like, I don't think he's like
getting like black filled here. But it is like interesting
(26:17):
how these ideas and words travel through networks and filter
down to children. And that's maybe something I'm a little
concerned about. But also the words themselves I've just dressed
are not bad maybe just yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, it's it's definitely a double edged sword.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I think I have a tendency to be a bit
of an algorithm alarmist, partially in the way it causes
people to communicate, but also just the opaqueness of it.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Absolutely, the opaqueness is something that that constantly just really
deeply frustrates me as a creator. Instagram doesn't give you
customer support unless you've purchased metaverified. TikTok doesn't tell you
anything nless you're in their special like secret TikTok program.
Even so, like they don't communicate to creators really what
their expectations are. They might just take down a video
or they might just whatever. So creators are like especially
afraid to take on the algorithm. And that's like how
(27:04):
we get outgo speak like words like unlive instead of
like suicide or something because you're afraid it. But like
you can still say the word suicide. Just the algorithm
might suppress your video, it might not. They don't even
tell you we're getting like productive language changed happening because
of people being afraid of the algorithm or people trying
to hijack the algorithm in ways that they they might
might work, might not even work. But if you start
by using a certain word, like you say Sigmas of Australia,
(27:28):
that probably is gonna better for the algorithm. But it's
also gonna perpetuate the word stigma, and then maybe my
my twelve year old cousin starts using it. Personally, I
try to also not use algorithms as much as possible.
I don't like how Spotify pushes the same trending song
every time I finish a playlist, so I've turned off
the AutoPlay. I don't like like on TikTok. I sometimes
get like a video of like somebody playing jazz, and
I really like listening to jazz, but I feel this
(27:50):
urge to scroll away, and I ask myself, what is
this urge coming for my Because my brain wants the
dopamine hit It was slightly better next video, So I've
been sort of trying to train myself to stop and
listen to the jazz video. In its entirety, it is
rough because we are kind of getting trained to have
shorter attention spans, for sure.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The algo speak is also something I find really fascinating
and also seems to have shifted as time goes on.
I don't you know fault any creator for having to
use it, but it is it is interesting to me
in terms like unalive terms like particularly grape always really
rubs me the wrong way, but weirdly ends up. It
(28:41):
feels like kind of minimizing very serious things and almost
like suppressing or not encouraging people to talk about, you know,
serious issues.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
I absolutely think that there is sort of a trend
towards infantile language when we use replacement vocabulary, so like
look at eggs instead of sex, or I do think
great instead of.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I do think.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Like a lot of are on alive sounds a little
more childish than suicide, right, so, I think. But it's
because a lot of these words are coming out of
memes which are made by young people, and young people
like using kind of fun sounding childish language. There is
a whole separate debate about whether or not this is
good or bad. I've talked to a lot of middle
school teachers and guidance counselors about unlive, and some of
(29:25):
them feel like, yeah, they're not able to talk about
the serious topic, which is concerning, But other people are saying, actually,
it's opening up conversations. It's allowing middle schoolers to Some
middle schoolers are learning the word on alive before the
word suicide, and it's allowing them to have these conversations,
especially when they're using the word as a genuine euphemism.
Sixty percent of the middle school teachers I talk to
are say that their kids are using on alive primarily
(29:48):
as the euphemism for when they don't want to use kill.
So I one teacher said, the students submitted an essay
on Hamlet unliving himself, and another one had a classroom
discussion the unliving that happens in Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde.
Kids genuinely think this is like a serious euphemism for
kill that sounds maybe nicer. Say so, like, we're seeing
this online speak turn into the offline. And I actually
(30:09):
the title of my book which is coming out it
is I'll go speak how social media is changing a
language that's that's available now, and I talk about a
lot more.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
That is really fascinating to me. And in a way
that you're like, that's just a lateral language shift. That's
pretty interesting that in twenty years you could you could
have someone in public office saying on alive and be
totally serious.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
I think we're joking about it now. I'm very sure
that it's going to be a thing.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That is really fascinating and an interesting way to sort
of accelerate the growth of how we use language, how
we talk, like how we talk about very serious issues.
And then there's the cynical part of me that it's
like it will never feel normal for me to hear
of forty five year old man say SIGs.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
I just never want to hear it.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It's definitely the future.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
So I know it.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I love love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 5 (30:57):
I think there's a lot of kind of Poe terminosity
with the memes and the metadata and the language, which
I keep trying to spread this message that they are
the same thing. Now, Like Riz trended last year because
it was a hashtag, like or not necessarily a hashtag,
but like the audio, like the algorithm picked up on
(31:17):
that as a trending term. So it is metadata and
creators are using it because they know it's a piece
of trending metadata. But it's also a meme at the
same time, it's like a funny riz meme whatever, and
then but it's also a word. So the word is
the meme is the piece of information for the algorithm,
and they love categorizing us, they love tagging us. That's
I think there's been a lot of new words for
categorizing ourselves and our identities, whether it's like cottage, core, unquoquette,
(31:39):
or like all these new micro labels all also emerge
out of the algorithm trying to find more information about
us and then turning those into trends, which are also words.
So it's all kind of connected to itself in that way.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
My last question for you, this is a podcast about
main characters of the Internet, which is I feel like
an increasingly challenging and rare phenomenon to sort of nail
down because of, like you're saying, how quickly the algorithm
tends to move. Now, So with regards to this show,
I mean, because you spend so much time professionally and
(32:13):
academically within the algorithm, do you feel that we will
continue to get Internet main characters in the way we
once did? Will that change? How do you Where do
you see that going?
Speaker 5 (32:24):
I think it's fascinating that you're putting this emphasis on
the main character. I think there's been a trend towards
the Internet's trying to make you feel like you're the
main character of the time. It's narrativizing. It's it's like,
when why are all these memes starting with PUOV. They're
inviting you to experience something firsthand. That's why we talk
about why we're in our era for something, why this
(32:44):
is something like we're explaining our lore, We're explaining our
you know something arc but like we tend to serialize
our own lives and pretend like we have this main
character syndrome, like we're going on side quests.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Really, I think all our lives are kind of meaningless, but.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
It feels good to not think that, which is why
the algorithm has been pushing stuff that makes you feel good,
makes you interact with the content and share more. So
I think the reason we're all I think we're all
going to be main characters in our heads because that's
what the Internet is telling us.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
WHOA Well you heard it here first everyone, you are,
in fact the main character. Thank you so much to Adam,
who you can find everywhere. He's got over half a
million followers on TikTok, a million on Instagram, half a
million on YouTube. This guy knows his damn Algo to
follow him to keep learning more, and you can also
(33:36):
pre order his book now.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
At the link in the description.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
And next week we begin our next deep dive into
the era of personified brands. I'm talking Denny's being the
most popular girl on Tumblr. I'm talking Wendy's Twitter feuds
of the twenty tens. I'm talking woke stakums during COVID.
I'm talking the duo lingo bird getting murdered for clout
(34:02):
a couple weeks ago. How did American marketing arrive at
a language at bird swimming and piss the bone? Chilling
history starts next week. See you then, please don't say segs.
And for your moment of fun, here is that brain WRT.
Australian politicians speech. Adam and I were talking about from
(34:24):
Fatima payment to.
Speaker 6 (34:26):
The Sigmas of Australia. I say that this goofy air
government have been capping not just now, but for a
long time. A few of you may remember when they
said there'll be no phantom tax under the government.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
I lead.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
They're kappa holics.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
They're also y apoholics. They yap NonStop about how their
cost of living measures are changing lives for all Australians.
Just put the fries in the bag, little bro. They
tell us that they're locked in on improving the housing
situation in this country. They must have brain rot from
watching too much Kai Sinat and forgot about their plans
(35:01):
to ban social media for kids under fourteen.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and
iHeart Radiops. It is written, hosted, and produced by me
Jamie Rostis. Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans.
The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.
Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is
from the brand creator and Pet. Shout outs to our
(35:30):
dog producer Anderson, my Kats, Flee and Casper, and by
Pet Rothbert who will outlive us all Bye.
Host
Jamie Loftus
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