How the creator economy is making you talk like the internet

The creator economy and language

0:00This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks delivered at TED conferences around the world. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. Challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR.

0:37I'm Manoush Zomorodi. Today on the show, part two of our exploration of the creator economy. How people are making money off of creativity. And what creativity even means in the age of AI. This is day one of becoming a full-time travel influencer. I get out a lot, so here is everywhere, right? This past week. If given the opportunity, more than half of Gen Z in the U.S. say they'd like to be a social media influencer.

1:07Making a living by creating content often in the form of short videos online.

Etymology nerd on social media

1:13Like Adam Aleksic. I speak in what I call an educational influencer accent. I'll talk very quickly. I'll stress more words to keep you watching my video. And all of that is part of this expected way to talk through the algorithm. Adam calls himself etymology nerd on social media, where he has over 3 million followers across platforms like TikTok and Instagram. I studied linguistics in college. And the classic question you ask yourself when you're graduating with a linguistics degree is, well, what do I do next? Yeah. Uh, I thought, you know, I might as well give social media a try.

1:47I made a bird language. It's called... Adam started posting about language back in 2022. The octave indicates mood, the semitone indicates... Including an early series about his own habit of communicating like a bird. Other videos explained phonetics. I'm pretty sure the first syllable is a very subtle difference. Like the sounds singer Cardi B makes. Obviously the rrrr is held longer than a regular trill... All the while he watched as the audience grew, thanks to, yes, his endearing nerdiness, but also how the algorithm responded.

2:18He uses one of two words through T and which one they use depends on how the word... Take one of his most popular videos, which explains why some of us use the word chai, while others call it T. Now, chai spread along land trade routes... This video has been watched over 16 million times. I think I've known about this thing since high school, and I didn't even consider making a video about it for the longest time... ...because I thought, wow, everybody knows this, but I guess people don't. In the video, Adam stands in front of a map, pointing out centuries-old trade routes. Every language basically has one of these two words.

2:51The word chai spread by land along Silk Road landed trade routes. It means the word chai in languages like Hindi, Russian, Persian... And then the word T spread along ocean trade routes. Now every country in Europe wants to get their hands in some tea, so they start trading with the Dutch through ocean trade routes. There's an intense, slightly manic feel to the whole thing, like he's rushing through this history lesson, even though every word he says has been chosen with care. Yeah, I think I opened with a hook. First, there's the intro. Oh, you didn't know about how every country uses one of two words for T?

3:21So, right off the bat, I use the word you, which is a second-person pronoun, which always goes more viral because people like videos about them. So if I just said, as an intro instead, this is a video about chai and tea, that's not going to go viral. Even if it's the exact same content, the exact same, like, idea. Then there's the storyline. This may be slightly reductive, like Polish has the word erbata, but I'm sort of simplifying the story because simple storytelling is so important to go viral on social media. You cannot have multiple narratives.

3:52You have to tell one narrative at a time on social media. And his delivery. I am talking quickly using my educational influencer accent. I am pointing around in the map and kind of moving around, like, creating visual disruptions. And all of that kind of is part of how you go viral. But also, in addition to history lessons, Adam turns the spotlight on words his followers are using right now. You know how the phrase he cooked is a good thing, but the phrase he's cooked... Which seemed to change by the day.

4:22The most interesting thing about the word skibbity is that... The thing about W-Riz is that W doesn't mean... His special sauce is explaining to his users why they talk the way they do. But the algorithm likes it, too. So is he working the algorithm? Or is the algorithm working him? Working everyone who makes and consumes content? Today on the show, we're continuing our series exploring the creator economy. How we're buying and selling creativity. And how it's changing what we value.

4:53Last time, we looked at the business side with entrepreneur and artist E.N.C. Strip. This time, how the creator economy is influencing our culture and language. So in the last couple years, Adam has parlayed his videos into a multi-hyphenate career. I'm a linguist, influencer, and author of AlgoSpeak. He's now in his mid-20s and makes what he calls a decent salary for a college grad who majored in a relatively obscure field. In college, my research was more focused on government and linguistics.

5:26And my undergrad stuff was all about language nationalism in Serbia and Croatia. Oh. So that's how I ended up in that line of work. I really don't mean to be impertinent by asking. I know some people will say, like, how can this guy, he's like in his early 20s, how can he call himself a linguist? Yeah, of course. Some people might come across you and think, oh my god, anybody can be an expert about anything. It is true that I have an undergrad degree in linguistics, not a graduate degree. I think what I'm doing is actually uniquely suited to studying slang etymology because to really understand what it means for something to spread online, you have to be online yourself.

6:07And I definitely never knew I'd end up studying social media linguistics, but it just happened that I started making videos about language, about etymology on these platforms, and I started noticing my own speech being restricted a little bit. I started noticing how I would reroute my language around platform constraints.

Unalive and platform constraints

6:25Can you give me an example of that? Like what? Yeah. Well, you can't say the word kill on TikTok. I mean, I guess you can, but it's suppressed. Your video is going to be shown to fewer people, so people turn to alternatives like on a live. I had not heard of on a live until I read your book, actually. Clearly, I don't hang out with enough young people.

6:52But, like, people started saying on a live instead of someone was killed or dead to get around censorship or get around restrictions on language on these platforms. Exactly. It's a more platform-safe alternative. As far as we can tell, the word on a live started in 2013 with an ultimate Spider-Man meme that then turned into a Roblox meme in the late 2010s that then started being used by the mental health community on TikTok. But then I also found that people were using the word on a live offline.

7:26There are kids in middle schools who talk about Hamlet contemplating unaliving himself in their classroom essays. Or a classroom discussion on the unaliving that happens in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Here's Adam Oleksik on the TED stage. And these aren't hypothetical situations. These are actual examples drawn from the thousand-plus middle school teachers I've surveyed about this word. Clearly, for such a recent word, unalive shows up in an impressive range of scenarios. But the main function appears to be euphemistic.

7:57Many kids use the word when they're uncomfortable talking about topics like death, since unalive sounds like a less scary word. And in many ways, this is nothing new. We've been euphemizing death as long as we've had language. The word decease, for example, comes from Latin decesus, which was a euphemism for the previous Latin word for death, mors. Apparently, even the Stoic Romans were as queasy about death as today's middle schoolers. But there is a crucial difference between unalive and decease.

8:29And that's that we only got the word unalive because you can't say kill on TikTok. They have a mysterious algorithm that removes or suppresses any post that might violate their community guidelines. So people got around with that with the word unalive. The middle schoolers don't know this. They see the word online or hear it from friends and assume it's a word like any other. And fair enough. You probably didn't know where the word decease came from. Unless you're some kind of etymology nerd.

8:57But decease didn't happen because it was impossible to carve the word mors into an ancient Roman tablet. We are entering an entirely new era of language change driven by social media algorithms. The algo speak, that's what it's traditionally called, this sort of platform circumvention, is only the tip of the iceberg of how these platforms are affecting our language. I also noticed, you know, myself playing into viral trends. I look at other influencers doing this, too. I look at attention grabbing language because these platforms are designed to monetize your attention.

9:31And all the incentive structure is there for influencers to replicate. How do we grab people's attention? So language is also kind of revolving more around ephemeral trends and what grabs attention. And we have algorithms creating in-groups and echo chambers through how they categorize users. And these in-groups actually serve as incubators for language formation. And all of this is sort of what I call algo speak, the expanded definition that our language is broadly being shaped by social media algorithms right now.

How the algorithm actually works

10:02Can we talk about the first part of that word, algo speak? Algo meaning algorithms, right? Like, let's talk about the algorithm. As a former tech reporter, I'm like, well, it's not the algorithm. I was about to say. There's like millions of algorithms, right? Like, but when people use it, what are they referring to? And can you walk us through what exactly you have noticed or how you've learned about how it does work in certain places? Yeah. And I'm so glad you brought up that it's not the algorithm because one of the biggest tenets we have when talking about the algorithm is to simplify it, to personify it.

10:38And that makes it feel more normal what's happening, I guess. It is a lot of different algorithms. How users are classified is one algorithm. How content is classified is another algorithm. And actually, even within those algorithms, there's a bunch of sub-algorithms that are all doing their own thing with content classification. So there's a lot of different processes running at the same time. And all of these are playing a part in the greater machination of how a video ends up from someone uploading it onto your For You feed. I mean, I'm thinking of myself. I love how I have bullied the algorithm on Instagram into only giving me nature and pets.

11:13I've protected my experience on that platform. But it obviously knows I'm a middle-aged woman who likes to go on long walks and doesn't want to look at the news when she's on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about, like, is that basically what we're talking about here? There's a lot of sense that you can train your algorithm, that you can personalize it. It is, after all, called the For You page. And people often say things like, oh, you know, I built my own For You page, or the algorithm really knows me. And I think this is also playing into that idea of training your algorithm.

11:45It is a simplified story. Yes, you partially have trained some aspect of what content is being recommended to you. But also on your Instagram feed that is mostly, you know, outdoors content, every third video is probably an advertisement. And you don't actually want to see the advertisement. So is the algorithm really for you? No, it's kind of both for you and for the platform's benefit. And every video that's shown to you, every video that shows up on the For You feed is actually something that benefits the platform, definitionally, because it gets your engagement, it gets your attention.

12:17So the things that spread are more for the platform than for you, but it's all kind of packaged under this guise of for you. And I think the personalization is one of the most dangerous things because we really forget what's going on on a broader level. In a minute, more with online linguist Adam Aleksic on how social media algorithms are influencing influencers online. It's constantly changing what priorities and incentives it's rewarding. And influencers have to just feel it out.

12:49They have to be aware of the algorithm by interacting with it on a daily basis. On the show today, The Creator Economy, Part 2. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to NPR's TED Radio Hour. We'll be right back. Hey, before we get back to the show, if TED Radio Hour has ever made you laugh or cry or just think deeply about the world around you,

13:22please do us a solid and leave the show a review wherever you like listening to podcasts. It really helps more people find us, and it helps us make the show even better. We really appreciate it. Now back to the show. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show, Part 2 of our look at the creator economy. Our guide today is creator Adam Aleksic. Adam is known as Etymology Nerd to his 3 million followers online,

13:53where he's cracked the code of how to go viral. His videos dissect how different people use different words, like demure.

Demure and viral slang trends

14:05Demure. Is demure changed forever? Can you explain to people what's happened to demure? Yeah, there was a demure trend about being demure, mindful, and cutesy in the workplace. Makeup for work? Very demure. Playing into cultural ideas of reservedness. The green crease. Not demure. Demure used to mean modest and reserved. So I'm eating a salad. Very demure. Then it trended on TikTok, where understatement became performative. How ironic. I don't know how to keep it demure for at least five minutes.

14:35It went everywhere, from teens to celebrities like the Kardashians and Jennifer Lopez. I drink from the bottle. Very demure. Yeah. There is this huge Gen Z aesthetic of nonchalance. And demure was sort of making fun of that, but at the same time, I think some people used it genuinely. This new use of demure made it Dictionary.com's Word of the Year in 2024. And it's not just new words to avoid algorithmic censorship. The very structure of social media is changing where words come from, how words get popular, and how quickly those words spread.

15:10For those of you out of the loop, these are the lyrics to the Rizzler song.

15:40A meme that went massively viral last year. It's full of current middle school slang words like Rizz, Giat, and Skibbidi, and was instrumental in popularizing those words to a broader audience. Sticking out your Giat for the Rizzler. You're so Skibbidi. You're so fake. I just want to be your sigma. Social media algorithms reward repetition. If a song is funny or catchy and people interact with it, the algorithm will then push that song to more people, since it's proven to drive engagement on the app.

16:18The same is true of memes, or words in general, since trending metadata like hashtags will also be pushed to people who previously shown interest in similar content. Creators are very aware of this. And we actively use trending audios or hashtags to make our videos perform better. In the wake of the Rizzler song, for example, we saw an explosion of people making videos with the words Rizz, Giat, and Skibbidi. Because they knew those videos would do well. And as a result, the words spread.

16:51Language has always been a little bit like a virus. Words are transmitted from one host to another, reproducing and changing as they infect different people along social networks. But now the literally viral nature of social media is accelerating this process from start to finish. In the span of just a year, a word like Rizz can go from complete obscurity to becoming the Oxford English Dictionary word of the year. And the algorithm is the culprit, but influencers are the accomplices.

17:26We use whatever tricks we can to keep you entertained, because that makes our videos do better, which helps us earn a living. This means that we often end up creating and spreading words that help the system. Clearly, you understand how the algorithm works in that you have been able to leverage it in a way that gets more people interested in the roots of language and explaining it to them. How did you do that? Absolutely. There's sort of a deal with the devil that has to happen, right?

17:57You have to accept as a creator, yes, I'm playing into what the algorithm is rewarding. And they're going to reward, for example, trends. So I started talking about trending language, also analyzing the trending language where it came from. You know, it's good for my business that the word skibbity goes viral because now I get to talk about the etymology of skibbity. And because people are socially fascinated in this phenomenon, my video is going to go more viral than an analysis of the word chair or table or whatever. That's less interesting to people.

Skibidi and brain rot words

18:27Let's pause. Footnote. Skibbity. What's it mean? Where did it come from for those who don't know like me? I feel like at this point, at least most people have heard of skibbity somewhere in the news. It was just added to the Cambridge Dictionary. But skibbity is a nonsense word. It can be used completely randomly as an interjection. That doesn't mean anything. But it could be an intensifier. So you could say skibbity riz is like very intense riz in either a good or a bad direction. Meaning charisma. Just, you know. Right. It's NPR. We have an older audience. No, of course. Very important to clarify.

18:59Yeah. So these are all kind of called brain rot words. And it's this meme aesthetic of supposedly words that are bad for your brain. As a linguist, I have to say there is nothing actually about these words that is mentally deleterious at all. But it is sort of the catch-all meme aesthetic of nonsensical repetition of algorithmic slang. And skibbity comes out of that YouTube short series. Riz comes from this Twitch streamer Kai Sinat. But both are kind of taking on this role of absurdity in the algorithmic kind of milieu.

19:29It's more of it's absurd because it's absurd because it's being recommended to us by the algorithm. And then middle schoolers start saying it because it sounds funny. And then when older people start saying it, they stop saying it. Exactly. I think we're well past skibbity. I think skibbity is on its last throes right now. It may be in the dictionary, but it's getting less and less popular in the middle schools. In the middle schools. Yeah. I feel like these new words come up and I'm like, I can't. I don't know. By the time I understand it, they'll have moved on. So what's the point? But that's probably smart because nobody wants to hear me saying skibbity anyway.

20:01Except they just did. Well, you know, some of the trends that really stick out, I think they have shorter lifespan. Because it is that thing that you mentioned. Once your grandmother starts saying skibbity, you no longer want to say skibbity yourself. Hey, I'm not a grandma yet. I wasn't calling you a grandmother. Okay.

20:16But there is that aspect to how trends die out. That once it starts being used by an out group, it initially had value because it was in the in group. And now it no longer has that value. So it no longer has any cachet as a joke. And then we move on. And there's constantly new jokes percolating. I also think it's important to pay attention to the jokes that don't seem as obvious or don't even appear as jokes in the first place. I think these are the words that are actually going to change our language more permanently. Words that are percolating from usually minority groups or from more fringe phenomena.

20:53Those are the ones that actually end up influencing our language. So I talk about the distinction between skibbity and low key. So low key is this adverb. It's been around since the 1800s as a word meaning like muted or something. But it was recently popularized in an adverbial sense. And this is from African-American English where people would say, oh, that party was low key good. Meaning like chill? Yeah. Well, low key, yeah. It kind of means like, you know, nonchalant. I don't want to say it too much being more low key about it.

21:23Right. It's muted. It's mutedness. It's reservedness. Also, the way you just used nonchalant, not how I used nonchalant. Oh, yeah. The word nonchalant is evolving as well. There's been an internet meme since like 2023 about how people are using this. So I guess it's tough being a translator when you're also deep in the kind of algorithm yourself. But yeah. So low key, I think. And these changing definitions that we see with a lot of other words are also happening but don't stick out as much as skibbity. And I think it's those words that don't stick out that are going to have a greater impact on our language hundreds of years from now.

22:00So what you're just saying actually is explaining a lot of my 15-year-old daughter's behavior. I mean, teenagers, whatever, twas ever thus, every generation has its own way of rebelling. But nonchalance is definitely a thing. Oh, absolutely. Also, an important point about the 15-year-olds. I think these kids are the bellwethers of where language is going to go. They are the ones that are actually most flexible with their linguistic behaviors. The elementary schoolers aren't quite as tapped into social trends yet or as searching to create identities.

22:35And older people are more entrenched in our ideas of how language should be or what words are supposed to sound like. And middle schoolers are forming their identity. They're trying to differentiate themselves from adults and from previous generations. They're trying to build a collective kind of identity for themselves. And so they are more flexible with adopting language. So you should be paying attention to your 15-year-old if you want to really understand what the state of the English language is right now. So I guess someone would say, like, yeah, but in my, you know, at my school, I remember there was, like, certain words.

23:08This is kind of gross. But in fourth grade, there was a kid who would spit at people but only using his glands under his tongue. And he called it a gleek. Huh. This is super weird. But then it just took off in the fourth grade. It was like boys would gleek the girl that they liked. Not gross, but also clearly good word because it stuck with me for all these years. But that's always been the case.

The printing press to algorithms

23:34Like, how is it different than, you know, social groups coming up with their own language or, for that matter, like the printing press, the radio? I'm so glad we're bringing up the printing press and the radio because the medium is the message. The way we're talking is going to shape the way that trends diffuse. And I'm not going to say, oh, it's new that humans are using language to communicate or come up with social trends. No, that is a fundamental human activity. And we will always do it and we will always find new ways to do it. But the algorithm is now mediating that interaction in the same way that the classroom did with the word gleek.

24:08The story of language as a whole is told by what mediums we're using to communicate.

24:16Before we had parchment and papyrus and everything, we relied a lot more on oral communication. Stories would be told through rhyme and meter. And then we moved to parchment and paper. And people were really concerned about that at the time. I think Plato was concerned about brain rot from people not memorizing things as much. Then we start segmenting our stories differently with paper, right? We can have chapters. We can actually put spaces between words as opposed to stone tablets where all the words were smooshed together. And then we start mass producing things with the printing press.

24:46And the printing press now allows for vernacular language to reproduce and kind of solidify also at the same time the traditional gatekeepers of who gets to control how we talk. And so for a while, the printing press is the dominant mode of communication. You have a lot of standard language being replicated in all these different languages rather than just church Latin.

25:10And the internet finally creates this opportunity for the written replication of informal speech. You have people using slang words. You have people writing in lowercase and using abbreviations. And this is sort of this revolution in who can talk and who can vote on what language is supposed to be like. And that sort of lays the foundation for what I think is the new inflection point.

25:35Algorithms govern the distribution of content. I don't know what type of videos I'm going to post on here yet. Okay, but why is your content not blowing up if you're doing everything right? Things don't go viral unless they work for the algorithm. And what that means is that the language we're using is always sort of performing for the algorithm as well. And this is this medium that is always there, that is always shaping how ideas diffuse online. And that means any idea that diffuses is either good for the algorithm or it's created for the algorithm.

26:09That means using words like unalive. That means playing into trends like skibity. That means a lot of creators are just incentivized to come up with new words or use trendy language because the algorithm sees that language as metadata. In the past, metadata was something like a hashtag, something that gives you information about the content. Now the algorithm sees everything. The natural language processing, computer vision components, all sub-algorithms analyze that. And they create this numerical representation of what a video is. And they already know what the video is about.

26:40But the word is part of that. So we're incentivized to use words that aid in the distribution of our own video.

26:51Just to follow up on, you know, the classic Marshall McEwen idea of the medium is the message. The algorithm is the one that's shaping language. But to be clear, the algorithm is programmed by people, people who work for very large tech companies who want to monetize. Absolutely. And they create those structures that are then replicated by other influencers down the line that, oh, you need engagement. You need retention, which is how long people watch a video.

27:23You need likes. And so now as an influencer, I'm trying to make all my videos to get people to watch the whole time. And I want to get likes. Otherwise, the video is not going to be distributed. So I have to play into that. I also want to note that there is emergent social phenomena that aren't programmed just by these engineers. It's not purely like this top down process. There is social expectations that come with each medium. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly. On NPR, you have like an NPR voice that's been studied.

27:53President Trump is making his first official trip. Clearly, I am not good at adapting into this. Oh, I think they've been trying to get rid of that for years, though. But at the same time. And yet here I am. You're speaking in maybe a more radio-friendly voice. I'm speaking in a more algorithm-friendly voice because that's what we've learned to talk when we're kind of communicating like this.

Influencer accents and delivery

28:13Wait.

Influencer accents and delivery

28:14Somebody might be like, what do you mean an algorithm-friendly voice? Define that. There's actually a bunch of different types of influencer accents. But you're probably familiar with the most famous sort of lifestyle influencer accent. The, hey, guys, welcome to NPR. Today we're going to be talking about algorithms. It has that uptalk. It has the rising tone. Well, because you're not getting any response from anyone. So you're like trying to have a conversation with yourself. Exactly. This is a one-sided communication that is an important part of shaping it. But that's not all.

28:44You know, I could just continuously monotone deadpan into the camera and that wouldn't go viral because there's an expectation of how people are supposed to talk. And this sort of lifestyle influencer accent came out of the previous YouTube accent, which came out of the Valley Girl accent. So there's layers of social prestige in how we talk and there's an expectation of what the lifestyle influencer is supposed to sound like. Now, wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that the human brain is attracted to those and therefore it gets more listens and therefore the algorithm continues to push it? Or are you saying that the algorithm is hearing those intonations and pushing it harder on people?

29:18No, I don't think the algorithm is picking up on accent intonations. I think there is actual human bias toward social prestige. We evaluate any kind of social situation through our lens of like, is this something worth listening to? And then like our slight scroll patterns get replicated through what the algorithm recommends. The algorithm doesn't even need to analyze whether or not this person is speaking in a lifestyle influencer accent. It's merely telling that, oh, this viewer scrolled away quickly because this person wasn't speaking in a socially approved accent in their minds.

29:53And that means I'm going to recommend this video to fewer users. And so there's sort of a selection that happens for socially desirable accents to replicate. And I also want to clarify that's only one type of accent that's the most stereotyped because, you know, women are scrutinized with language. I speak in what I call an educational influencer accent. I'll talk very quickly. I'll stress more words to keep you watching my video. I get the sense, though, that you were a fast talker always. No, I definitely am a fast talker and I'm definitely giving away myself here. But also there is a perfection that I strive for in the videos where I'll retake certain clips.

30:28If it seems like I don't have the right intonation on the right word or if I stumble on my words, if I don't talk fast enough. And so what now is still like a kind of more natural way of speaking for me. And I, again, would probably speak differently if I was in a larger group conversation where you don't need to. It's like more laid back. You know, it's more demure. You're so nonchalant, Adam. My God. I don't want to be chalant all the time. There's a time and a place to be chalant and there's a time to be nonchalant. Wait, there's a difference between chalant and nonchalant?

31:02Well, nonchalant is being reserved. But chalant is not its own word. What? But it is. It is now. It's a slang word that was popularized through, like, social media. Meaning? Meaning people talk, meaning the opposite of nonchalant, meaning you are overt about something. Like jazzed? Yeah, you are excited about something. I'm chalant about language, you know? When I say jazzed, are you like, whoa, 87, or what? I mean, I probably would just use the word chalant, exactly.

31:31When we come back, Adam's concern and optimism for social media users, younger ones in particular. Plus, Adam and I go viral. Maybe. Oh, you didn't know about the word? All right, how do we begin? Oh, sorry. It's just terrible. Today on the show, the creator economy and its effects on language. I'm Manusha Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

32:13I'm Manusha Zomorodi. We've been talking to Adam Aleksic about the creator economy. Adam calls himself a social media linguist. He's also the author of Algo Speak, how social media is transforming the future of language. And he has built his career explaining the cultural and generational divide on how we use words. We didn't have the idea of a social generation in the 1800s. Because this is like a new thing. People are coming back from World War I.

32:44We call them the lost generation. Oh, the people coming back from World War II, that's the GI generation. Then we have baby boomers. And then we actually don't know what to call you the next generation after that. We're like, well, I guess they don't have a desire to be defined. So we'll call them Gen X. And then we just keep running with the idea that generations exist. And then we have like millennial, yeah, because it's 2000. And then, well, we don't know what to call Gen Z either. So we'll just do whatever was two after Gen X. And now we just ran out of the alphabet. So we'll call it Gen Alpha. But I think influencers play into these labels because there is a human social fascination with being labeled.

33:16We love things like MBTIs and Zodiacs and the idea of belonging to a bucket and with a generation. And it's shorthand, right? It is. It is shorthand. And obviously, it's reductive. And I think people realize that. But we're using more generational language than we were before because it works. It works to talk about the Gen Z finger heart versus the millennial heart. Or before Gen X people will start a short form video, they'll do like a little breath in.

33:44It's so strange to me that we put ourselves in buckets like that. And they actually serve as algorithmic trend bait to say that you are, oh, this is a Gen Z thing. This is the Gen Z stare went viral recently. I did a video on the boomer ellipses. There's always a random dot, dot, dot in the middle of their messages. Oh, I do that. I phrased it that way because I knew it would go viral. Like, why do boomers put dots in their text, which is not a normal thing that young people do? So it was simply more efficient to separate ideas. But it's like trailing off in your language.

34:16Yeah, yeah. It's just, there's different texting etiquette among different generations. And again, to use that word generation already feels like, I mean, all of language is putting things into categories. But I think some categories are more reductive than others.

Cottagecore and manufactured identities

34:28For example, the suffix core has recently gotten very popular in Gen Z slang to describe specific aesthetics, like cottage core, or goblin core, or angel core. And on the surface level, these are cute. You watch a cottage core video. You like it. Later on, you get more cottage core content. You might even start to identify with the cottage core aesthetic. But here's the thing. It's all fake.

34:59The entire reason these aesthetics exist is because TikTok algorithm has decided that words like cottage core qualify as trending metadata. So creators respond by making more cottage core content that propagates the word, and then more people interact with it, which makes the word trendier. And this happens because social media algorithms want to make you identify with hyper-compartmentalized labels. Since they can then give you extremely specific, commercialized content catering to that identity. Now that you're a cottage core person, you feel special every time you get a cottage core video.

35:31You're like, cottage core? Well, the algorithm really knows me. The algorithm gave you that identity. You might even start buying cottage core clothing or cottage core decorations to fit your new lifestyle as a cottage core person. And that's exactly what they want. The craziest part is, they're not even trying to hide this.

35:54This is at the heart of the capitalist maker economy, no? This is such an important point to understand about how algorithms work. They want more categories. It's really good for them if I'm a demisexual goblin core Gen Z Swifty. I don't even know what you just said, but yes, go on. The point is, those are all little identifiers, little pieces of metadata about myself as a user. The algorithm actually doesn't need the words, but humans sense that they are trying to perform for the algorithm.

36:26And they create these words. And they actually circularly, emergently make more of a cluster of users who identify with this label. And that it makes more for the algorithm to reward. And it's all part of this surveillance capitalism system where now they have more things to label about us, more ways to target us more specifically. If you look at TikTok's business page in 2021, it says that subcultures are the new demographics. And it gives businesses ideas for how to profit off things like cottagecore and the hashtag baddie aesthetic.

36:57And what's crazy to me about that page, they are using the word demographic. Because in the past, a demographic was like race, age, gender. And now it's also whether you're cottagecore or not. So as a Gen Xer, part of me is like, dude, you're totally selling out. But I'm guessing that that was an extremely time-specific way of testing you on why you are in the career you're in. I think I'm extremely aware of the dissonance, I guess, that is required to be a creator talking about these words and caring about how algorithms are affecting our culture.

37:34I think it is possible to use these algorithms subversively. Otherwise, I would not. It's also, I think, very important to mix forms of media if we're going back to McLuhan in media theory. There's a scholar called Harold Innes who came before McLuhan in Canada. I think he has a fascinating point about space-biased versus time-biased communication. And time-biased sticks with the cultural record like books and oral traditions. And so while it might take way longer to reach an audience that's the same size, space-biased media fills up a lot of space really quickly but doesn't stick around.

38:08Something like a newspaper or mass media or TV or right now algorithms are incredibly space-biased. They fill our consciousness and then they go away. So it seems that both types of media have their pros and cons, right? Space-biased media is very good for communicating to a big audience and time-biased media is very good for maintaining some kind of cultural constancy or longevity. And so I think we should be mixing as much time-biased and space-biased media as possible where we build a more holistic picture of society and reality by consuming and engaging with all these different types of media.

38:43So that's why I wrote a book. Yeah. I did want to ask you that. Writing a book seems kind of retro in a way, but based on what you've just said, am I right to assume that you were happy to create it? Well, A, because you got paid, and B, gets your ideas to more people. But C, it's more tangible that it'll stand the test of time, maybe unlike some of your TikTok videos? Yeah, I don't think anybody's looking at my TikTok videos from 2023. Somebody might look at this book two years from now, though.

39:15So there is a difference to how ideas can diffuse, and ideas will diffuse differently depending on the medium. So a lot of this is just built up layers of human social constructs. The NPR social construct of how we're supposed to talk versus the book social construct of how I'm supposed to write, which is in formal English, mind you. And then there's the TikTok construct of how I'm supposed to talk. And each of these has a different layer of respect or understanding of how I should be communicating. So who are you really, Adam? I think a good communicator should know to adapt to different media and to different types of people and to different social settings.

39:50And we are constantly code switching all around us. You are a different person talking to your grandmother than talking to your best friend. And that is super normal. Your grandmother's house is a different medium than the bar that you're hanging out with your friend at. So this is an aspect of human nature to switch with the medium, but kind of maintain conceptual constancy, I guess. Still have your own moral system and your own direction with what you're trying to do. I asked Adam to make a video with me.

Slurs, politics, and radicalization

40:22How do we begin? Oh, sorry. And use his formula to see if we could go viral. The lighting's kind of bad. By playing to the algorithm. Our first requirement, a trendy new word. Oh, you didn't know about the word clanker? And you always need a good hook. Gen X versus Gen Z. No, I had no idea. I'm Gen X. It's kind of a speculative slur for robots. So the idea that they would become more sentient in the future and they could be treated as a human minority today. The point of this video? To get people thinking about why we would even invent a slur for something that humans created.

40:57In this case, robots, which we are now calling clankers as a slur. Exactly. So the idea is a derogatory play on the idea of clanking as a robot, but also the N-word itself. It comes from Star Wars, where robots are seen as sort of a secondary race. And there's a lot of ideas about clankers being a lower class, but sort of anthropomorphized citizen in the future. In some ways, that makes sense. Like, they're not humans, so shouldn't they be treated as clankers? You know, it's just the idea that in the future they would become conscious.

41:29And we aren't recognizing that. It's sort of an online meme that's speculating about your daughter bringing home a clanker in the year 2060. So, like, 2060, my daughter's going to bring home a robot who is really, really nice to her, therefore a nicer boyfriend than a real human, but he's kind of a clanker. Right. Well, the idea is you don't want your daughter dating a robot. Amen to that. Well, in 2060, that might be racist. Oh, God. Will the word clanker be around a year from now?

41:59Maybe not. Are these trendy words and memes among the world's most urgent issues? Definitely not. But as much as they are fun and interesting, there is a darker side to this world of algorithms and memes. I do want to make sure that I ask you, there are people who are using language and the way the algorithm works to get across all kinds of ideas. Last year, we saw the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer.

42:34That trial is ongoing. But before his death, as an influencer, he built a big following online, in part through a very particular use of language, right? It was short, punchy, geared for viral-ness. From your perspective, how does that illustrate the way that social media platforms are shaping the way public figures communicate? Yeah, there's a sort of gotcha style that goes viral that you'll see Ben Shapiro or Charlie Kirk in the past use.

43:06That's like keep it concise, keep it clip-farmed, so something that can go viral as a 30-second clip, some snarky sound bite. It doesn't matter who's more correct, just who can go more viral. And if you can go more viral than the other person, you can out-compete like rebuttals or counterpoints. So it's more about just get your idea out there than have some measured response. And algorithms reward extreme things, right? When we're talking about engagement optimization, what these algorithms are doing to get our attention, things that are good at getting attention are unfortunately really extreme things.

43:37So far left and far right opinions and voices are going to be amplified. You know, AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene are always going to go viral than my congressman, where I grew up in Albany, New York, Paul Tonko. No offense, he's kind of boring. He doesn't go viral, right? There's no kind of extreme point to his views, so it's not going to go as far on the algorithm. And so you have this ability of more extreme views to out-compete less extreme views, diffuse further, and then more people maybe start adopting that. It represents a new chance for people to donate money.

44:08I think Donald Trump is the first algorithmic president in the same way that Kennedy was the first TV president. He was famously kind of elected over Nixon because he looked more photogenic. And I think Donald Trump is the more memeable president. And if photogenic candidates were good on TV, memeable presidents are good for algorithms. I mean, one illustration I think of how, just back to Charlie Kirk, how this can play out in real life. I had a conversation with a friend, a mom, who said to me, I hate to admit it, I had not heard of Charlie Kirk.

44:40But I asked my 14-year-old son if he had, and he said, duh, mom, of course I have. I'm a white 14-year-old kid on social media. I'm targeted exactly by them. Of course I've seen his videos. The fact that he understood what he was getting and why he was getting it. Do you think that the younger generation is more savvy? And are they questioning the information that they're getting because they are thinking about the medium? Yes, I actually have so much optimism for the younger generation.

45:11I actually think older generations are maybe more concerningly illiterate of the new medium. The first people to get tricked by slop were boomers on Facebook, and there was like a shrimp Jesus that went viral. I think young people generally have a decent understanding of, oh, this could be AI, this might not be real. Or like, this is the algorithm, and the algorithm is not necessarily showing me what I want. But when people engage less with new media, they are less aware of how some things are fake or overrepresented.

45:43But yes, definitely it is still a pipeline for younger people to get radicalized. A lot of this comes directly out of extreme ideology built on 4chan. Some of the linguistic communities created by the algorithm can be actively harmful. Many younger people have started using the suffix pilled to mean convinced into a lifestyle. If I recently discovered that I really like eating burritos, for example, I can say, I'm so burrito pilled.

46:13But that word was formed through analogy with blackpilled, a term meaning convinced into incel ideology. Now, incels are a dangerous, misogynistic group. And yet, somehow, the vocabulary is filtering into Gen Z slang because the algorithm gave these hate groups a space. And again, many people don't even know where it came from. But for the few people who might be interested in the underlying idea, it's now more accessible to them because of the way that slang spreads on the internet.

46:47What do you think that means? You just said you were an optimist for younger generation. But after hearing you say that, I worry a lot. I'm an optimist for younger generations having literacy about this stuff. I am not an optimist in terms of algorithms and how they impact our culture. I do want to draw that distinction between language and culture because I sort of comment on both a lot. And I think language is fine and there's nothing wrong with individual words. They're never brain wrought. I do think the same way as Chinese language points us towards greater cultural shifts.

47:18You see a lot of words coming from that 4chan manosphere space. And we should be paying attention to why are these words coming out of that space? It's because that space is good at creating memes that export their ideology. And sometimes their ideology is very intertwined with far-right ideas and aesthetics. And, yeah, that's kind of a problem of algorithms themselves, how they push extreme perspectives. What I said earlier about mixing media, I really hope that we come to realize as a culture that we should not just be relying on algorithms for our news.

47:49But also, you know, mainstream news has its own biases. It's good to get news from as many places as possible and build a greater picture of reality. It's good to build your stories of who people are through in-person connections as well because algorithms are going to show you a flattened representation of what society is. I do think we should be aware. We should be aware when the way we're talking may have been conditioned by the algorithm. We should be aware when the words we're using may have been engineered to sell us things.

48:20We should be aware when our language regurgitates extremist rhetoric. And we should be aware when that language can be used to harm other people. We should be aware of etymology in general because it helps us better understand who we are today. We should be aware.

48:36And with that, I have just one final piece of slang for you. It's a common phrase used by younger people when we finish a long-winded explanation of something. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. That was Adam Aleksic. He's the author of Algo Speak, How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language. You can find him at Etymology Nerd on social media. And you can see his talk at TED.com. Thank you so much for listening to our show today.

49:11If you enjoyed it, leave us a comment. What words are you using? We would love to know. You can do that on Spotify or email us at tedradiohour at npr.org. We love hearing from you. This episode was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by Sana's Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes James De La Housie, Rachel Faulkner-White, Katie Monteleone, Fiona Guerin, Harsham Nahada, and Phoebe Lett. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineers were Damian Herring and Gilly Moon.

49:42Our theme music was written by Ramteen Arablui. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.