AI Summary
5 min readSocial media platforms like TikTok are accelerating language change by prioritizing viral, attention-grabbing words and phrases. The guest, an etymology expert known as Etymology Nerd, explains how terms like "six seven"—a nonsensical basketball clip reference—became Dictionary.com's 2025 word of the year through "clip farming," where speakers drop keywords hoping for algorithmic virality and shares. This tactic exploits curiosity ("What does it mean?") and absurdity as meta-commentary on the attention economy. Similarly, Oxford's "rage bait" choice and slang like "sloot" or "mid" spread via controversy or complaint, while Gen Alpha kids and politicians mimic them for exposure. TikTok now dominates slang origins, per a 2022 Know Your Meme study, outpacing 4chan and Reddit due to its conversational UI and echo chambers that cycle trends faster.
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What you'll learn
- 1 `(00:00)` **🎙️ Introduction: Etymology Nerd (Linguistics Influencer)**
- 2 `(02:31)` **TikTok as Dominant Linguistic Engine**
- 3 `(03:27)` **Platform-Specific Dialects**
- 4 `(04:20)` **Looksmaxing and Viral Slang Fallout**
- 5 `(05:42)` **Influencer Accents and "Sad Beige" Lawsuit**
- 6 `(07:07)` **Purpose of Lifestyle Influencer Act**
- 7 `(09:23)` **Educational vs. Lifestyle Influencer Accents**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Adam Aleksic is a linguist, content creator, and author, best known online as the Etymology Nerd.
What’s happening to language right now? Words like “rizz” and “skibidi” can make it feel like you’re out of the loop, but are you actually getting older, or has the internet transformed language into something entirely new? What does the science of linguistics say about this shift?
Expect to learn why 6-7 was voted word of the year for 2025, why TikTok is becoming the most powerful linguistic engine on Earth, if there is a science to meme language, why funny language spreads and what makes it stick, why we should care about linguistics, and much more…
TImestamps:
(0:00) The Truth Behind “Word of the Year” (2:31) Is TikTok Rewiring How We Speak? (3:27) Do Social Platforms Create Their Own Dialects? (5:34) The Hidden Formula Behind Influencer Language (13:47) Why MrBeast Changes His Voice (17:01) Internet Subcultures and Their Unique Languages (18:33) How Newscasters Engineered Their Signature Voice (21:12) Why Sports Commentators Sound So Distinct (22:38) Is Distribution Is the Key to Going Viral? (26:44) Can You Hear Sexuality in Someone’s Voice? (33:38) Are Lesbian Accents Hard to Identify? (40:32) Should We Replace Words With Emojis? (43:37) The Surprising Evolution of Etymology (45:26) Are Young People Driving Language Change? (47:10) Why We Reject Forced Language (48:34) Where Do Filler Words Come From? (52:14) The Most Powerful Language Tricks Creators Use (54:58) How AI is Changing the Way We Speak (01:02:55) Can One Word Capture a Whole Idea? (01:04:17) Social Media vs AI: What’s Worse For Language Development? (01:08:20) How Language Shapes the Way We Think (01:10:41) What It Really Means to Be Gen Z (01:14:40) Why Teenagers Naturally Rebel (01:20:20) Rapid-Fire: The Origins of Everyday Words (01:24:37) The Power of Creating Your Own Language (01:28:21) Was QWERTY Designed to Be Inefficient? (01:31:57) Does ChatGPT Actually Speak English? (01:33:49) Is Language Evolving Faster Than Ever? (01:35:02) Where to Find Adam
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