Algorithmic Social Media Is Driving New Slang

算法社交媒体正在推动新俚语的产生

Science Quickly

2025-09-19

26 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

From viral slang such as “skibidi” to the rise of so-called brain rot, linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic, aka the “Etymology Nerd,” and associate editor Allison Parshall, who covers the mind and brain, unpack how social media and algorithms are reshaping the way we communicate. Recommended Reading The Internet Is Making Us Fluent in Algospeak E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Understanding the human body is a team effort.

  • That's where the Yakult group comes in.

  • Researchers at Yakult have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

  • Yakult also partners with Nature Portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the Global Grants for Gut Health,

  • an investigator-led research program.

  • To learn more about Yakult, visit yakult.co.jp.

  • That's Y-A-K-U-L-T dot C-O dot J-P.

  • When it comes to a guide for That's always been culture,

  • our subjective experience in defining what we think is good and bad in society.

  • Pop art plays with that boundary between what is lower and what is high art.

  • If Andy Warhol were around right today, he would be making like skibbity toilet paintings.

  • The idea is that this is still a subjective thing at the end of the day and image of a toilet is not neurologically bad for you anymore than the word skibbity is bad for you.

  • For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.

  • If you've ever heard a kid say skibbity and found yourself lamenting the downfall of the English language,

  • then today's episode might surprise you.

  • Our guest is Adam Alexek, a content creator and linguist known online as the etymology nerd.

  • He recently wrote a book called AlgoSpeak, how social media is transforming the future of language,

  • which looks at how algorithms are affecting the way we communicate.

  • It might feel like the rise of brain rot is literally rotting our brains,

  • but Adam argues that what we often treat as internet gibberish actually follows the same patterns of language creation that humans have followed.