#algospeak

[shamebats]

This is going to be an interesting read

(Algospeak by Adam Aleksic)

[officialhavensocial]

Free Art Raffle!

Want some free art, and to help us protect everyone from invasive AI? Enter our raffle to win a free commission from the YouTuber Inkiio! We'll pick a winner in 1 week. You can learn more about our project to make it easy to protect yourself from AI scrapers & surveillance by watching our interview linked below.

We're fighting to protect people from: - Facial recognition dragnets - YouTube's abuse of creators via fraudulent copyright claims and demonetizations - Megacorp social medias modifying their algorithm to manipulate and propagandize you - AI art scraping - Algospeak

Our interview with VildrArt goes into detail about each of these. Check it out, and if you like what we're up to, please support our Kickstarter!

Do you know a YouTuber, journalist, artist, musician, actor, author, producer, or other public figure who would like to help us spread the word about Haven? Get in touch with us, we'd love to work together!

[kaijufluffs]

Every time I see the tiktok refugee's come over and use terms like 'unalive' and 'seggs' and all this algo speak - I just want to hold their face gently and go;

'Nothing is monetizing this here, you can say fuck and nobody will care.'

[algospeakstudy]

Do you use TikTok? Are you over 18? Please take this research survey about algospeak on TikTok!

Click here to take the survey!

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 105: Linguistics of TikTok - Interview with Adam Aleksic aka EtymologyNerd

TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are an evolving genre of media: short-form, vertical videos that take up your whole screen and are served to you from an algorithm rather than who you follow. This changes how people talk in them compared to earlier forms of video, and linguists are on it!

In this episode, your host Gretchen McCulloch gets enthusiastic about the linguistics of tiktok with Adam Aleksic, better known on social media as etymologynerd. We talk about how Adam got his start into linguistics via etymology, the process that he goes through to make his current videos get the attention of people and algorithms, and how different forms of media (like podcasts vs shortform video) relate differently to their audiences. We also talk about the challenges of writing a book about language on the internet when it changes so fast, comparing the writing process for Adam's upcoming book Algospeak with Gretchen's book Because Internet.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:

In celebration of our 100th bonus episode we've decided to go back into the vault and revisit our very first bonus episode - with updated sweary commentary! We've made this extra bonus bonus version available to all patrons, free and paid, so feel free to send it to your friends!

In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about your linguistics questions! In honour of our 100th bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, and because our first advice episode was so popular, here's another episode answering your advice questions, from the serious to the silly!

Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 90+ other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Adam Aleksic's website

etymologynerd on TikTok, Instagram, and Substack

Algospeak by Adam Aleksic

'Where Do Memes Come From? The Top Platforms From 2010-2022' by Aidan Walker for Know Your Meme

Lingthusiasm episode 'Emoji are Gesture Because Internet'

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

'It’s Complicated - The Social Lives of Networked Teens' by Danah Boyd (pdf)

Lingthusiasm bonus episode 'Words from your family: Familects!'

'Language and the Internet' by David Crystal (2001)

Lingthusiasm episode 'Helping computers decode sentences - Interview with Emily M. Bender'

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

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Lingthusiasm is on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Bluesky as @GretchenMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Bluesky as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins, our editorial assistant is Jon Kruk, and our technical editor is Leah Velleman. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

[smallsinger5901]

Already loving this book

[salvadorbonaparte]

People here have been making fun of tiktok self censorship "algospeak" and I would love to study this phenomenon under a microscope but the most baffling thing for me remains when tiktok uses code works like "accountant" and "mascara" because god forbid anyone wants to talk about the standard definition of those words

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

Have you read Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic (2025)?

yes

no

I've read parts of it

I've never heard of it

Voting ended onJan 24