Lisa notes

From Nadsat to “Unalive”: The Slippery Nature of Speech

This month, I’m slowly making my way through A Clockwork Orange for an upcoming book club—and it’s not been easy. Originally published in 1962, the book’s teenage narrator uses a made-up slang language called Nadsat. For me, it turns every page into a decoding exercise because I don’t speak that language.

But it also reminds me of the real-life phenomenon almost every generation lives in when younger generations create new vocabularies and sometimes new grammar to set themselves apart.

The difference now is that it’s occurring at a quicker pace because it spreads online.

Reading the brand-new book Algospeak by Adam Aleksic at the same time as the older book A Clockwork Orange highlights to me that language has been used throughout time as a barrier—between youth and adults, insiders and outsiders, and now tech and tradition.

Aleksic’s book, subtitled How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, is a lively, easy-to-read deep-dive into how algorithms are changing our language in the digital age. Aleksic is both a Harvard-trained linguist and a viral content creator known as @etymologynerd, so he is uniquely qualified to explain what’s happening—and why it matters.

What Is Algospeak?

“Algospeak” is the coded language people use online to avoid being flagged or censored by the algorithms. For example, creators use words like “unalive” instead of “dead,” or “SA” instead of “sexual assault,” to keep their work from being removed online.

But according to Aleksic, algorithms aren’t just changing language by creating these workarounds—it’s a more direct pipeline. Algorithms are shaping the very words we see and hear, and then share and speak.

The term “algospeak” was first popularized in a 2022 Washington Post article, but Aleksic uses it more broadly. He argues that algorithms don’t just police language—they influence which words go viral, which tones perform best, and how fast slang spreads across multiple platforms.

Algorithms, Identity, and Power

Aleksic’s deeper point is that algorithms are a new, invisible source of using language as power. When speech is under surveillance or suppression, people adjust how they say things. Especially among youth, these adjustments create new identities for those who learn to speak the same online slang, carving out a shared space where they feel they belong.

He also introduces readers to the euphemism treadmill. For example, he says,

“The words ‘idiot,’ ‘imbecile,’ and ‘moron’ all used to be serious words for classifying mental disability, but then they became negative, so we replaced them with the word ‘retarded,’ which also became negative, so we replaced that with ‘mentally disabled,’ which is also becoming negative.”

Nowadays, though, it’s not just society shaping the language, but platform policies and how the algorithm enforces them.

Rage-Bait, Rubbernecking, and Emotional Manipulation

A major theme of Algospeak is that the way algorithms change language is also how they manipulate emotion. Aleksic, himself an influencer, doesn’t deny the dark side of influencers using emotional hooks so they can stay visible longer in people’s feeds—what he calls “algorithmic pandering” and “rage-bait.”

As you already know if you have an Instagram or Facebook or any other social media account, the algorithm doesn’t give you what you consciously want to see—it shows you whatever it thinks will get the the biggest reaction from the most people.

Aleksic calls this “digital rubbernecking,” the online equivalent of when we slow down to look at a car crash on the side of the road.

The result? The algorithm is training us to overreact, to see ourselves as more polarized from other people than we really are. It creates a tendency in us to think that the extreme is normal, when it’s not.

The Resilience of Language—and of Us

Despite some of these depressing insights (alongside amusing insights, too), Algospeak ends with hope. Aleksic wants us to remember to use our humanness to create and connect when we’re online together. He writes,

“Language is, and will remain, one of the most important forms of power and belongingness.”

Even when our language is shaped by tech, we can still use it to express ourselves and connect with each other.

Aleksic closes his acknowledgements at the back of the book with this:

“Finally, to my readers. Keep being human and using language in new and exciting ways.”

And I believe we can keep using language in these ways—even in a world of algorithms and metadata.

Let’s keep finding fresh ways to say what we mean and mean what we say with creativity, beauty, and kindness.

If you like reading books about language, along with Aleksic, I also recommend these two books:

• Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
• Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

Here’s an excellent NYTimes review of Algospeak here:

• “The Harvard-Educated Linguist Breaking Down ‘Skibidi’ and ‘Rizz’”

Have you seen online slang or coded language in a TikTok video or social media that has surprised or confused you? Share your thoughts here in the comments.

My thanks to NetGalley for
the review copy of Algospeak