From the rise of leetspeak and words such as “unalive” to the trend of adding “-core” to different influencer aesthetics, the internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. And with over 7 billion internet users uploading over 2.5 quintillion bytes of media every day, the sheer volume of potential new words is astounding. In Algospeak, online etymologist Adam Aleksic shines a light on the roots of words that we don’t realise have come from unexpected places – from incel culture, from the innovation of users trying to get around content moderation algorithms, from the marketing speak that has invaded our personal lives. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform our interactions, social norms and habits. Algospeak tells, through words, the bigger social story of how language shapes us, just as much as we shape it.
