Key Moments
THEY’RE BRAINWASHING YOU! (& other secrets that made you click) - Etymology Nerd
Modern WisdomKey Moments
Slang like 'rizz' and 'skibidi' isn't a sign of linguistic decay, but a meta-commentary on our attention-driven digital ecosystem. The internet is creating hyper-specific language 'dialects' that can be ruthlessly exploited.
Key Insights
The word of the year 2025, '67', was chosen by Dictionary.com as a marketing ploy, highlighting 'clip farming' as the future of online distribution.
TikTok is now the dominant linguistic engine, surpassing 4chan and Reddit in generating new words and trends according to a 2022 study by Know Your Meme.
Influencer 'accents' are optimized for algorithms, with uptalk and prolonged vowels serving as 'floor holding' tactics to maintain audience retention.
Gen Z slang often originates from African-American English or platforms like 4chan, with anonymity on 4chan creating strong social pressure to adopt specific slang for in-group belonging.
AI models like ChatGPT exhibit a 'Latin-based bias' over Germanic words, leading to increased usage of words like 'delve' even influencing human speech patterns.
Language is evolving rapidly due to social media and AI, with a predicted mass extinction of languages and a homogenization driven by algorithmic constraints.
The meta-meaning of viral slang and dictionary marketing ploys.
The word '67' being voted word of the year in 2025 is a prime example of how dictionaries use marketing ploys to sell more books. The word itself is vacuous, designed to incite the question, 'What does that mean?' This isn't entirely unique; 'rage bait' was Oxford's 2025 word of the year, also intended to spark controversy and drive engagement with dictionary brands. The trend of '67' exemplifies 'clip farming,' where the core strategy is virality. This involves using keywords and phrases intentionally designed to be attention-grabbing, maximizing the potential for content to be clipped and shared. This phenomenon isn't about inherent meaning in words but about their strategic use to cash in on online attention. Even absurd words like '67' carry a meta-meaning: their absurdity is a deliberate critique of the general information ecosystem. By emerging as a word, it highlights the ridiculousness of current trends in content creation and distribution. The appeal lies in a 'knowing wink' to the algorithm and audience, signaling an understanding of and participation in the game of virality. 'Slop' and 'brain rot' are also terms used to describe content, but the speaker argues that words themselves are neutral tools, and negative associations are cast onto language from negative experiences with social media content.
TikTok: The new powerhouse of linguistic innovation.
TikTok has emerged as the most powerful linguistic engine on Earth, significantly shaping language. A 2022 study by Know Your Meme indicated a shift in the origin of words, moving from platforms like 4chan and Reddit to predominantly TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). The platform fosters linguistic innovation by creating a sense of ongoing conversation where users feel compelled to participate. This creates an 'effervescent' environment where language is actively created and evolves. Algorithmic trends and echo chambers within TikTok accelerate slang cycles, making them faster than ever before. This has led to the development of distinct 'dialects' within different online communities and platforms, much like how one adjusts speech based on social context, such as speaking to a grandmother versus a friend. For instance, LinkedIn might see more professional language, while Twitter might host linguistic play with emerging words. Even within TikTok, micro-dialects exist within fandom groups, creating unique linguistic pockets.
The mechanics of influencer accents and algorithmic optimization.
Influencer accents are not merely vocal quirks; they are strategically crafted for algorithmic success and audience engagement. The 'lifestyle influencer accent,' characterized by uptalk and vocal fry, traces its roots to early internet personalities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton and has filtered into TikTok. This style serves multiple purposes: it acts as a social signal, marking identity within a particular group of influencers; it performs relatability for their audience; and it is optimized for the algorithm to maximize retention. Dragging out words, particularly the final syllable, and using uptalk signaling an unfinished thought, are effective for captivating audiences and preventing dead silence, which is detrimental to algorithmic performance. This 'floor holding,' a known linguistic strategy, allows creators to maintain attention while they formulate their next point. The 'educational influencer accent,' conversely, is sharper and faster-paced, emphasizing stressed words and clear consonants to convey authority and knowledge efficiently. This difference highlights how linguistic choices directly serve the meta-goal of capturing and holding viewer attention within platform-specific incentives. The 'sad beige lawsuit,' where one influencer sued another for allegedly stealing her 'vibe' including her accent, underscores how influential and quantifiable these linguistic and stylistic elements have become.
The performance of identity and the linguistic incubator of 4chan.
Language serves as a critical tool for identity formation and signaling belonging. Online platforms, particularly those with anonymity, foster environments where linguistic proficiency becomes a marker of in-group status. 4chan, for example, functions as a linguistic incubator due to its anonymity. Users must demonstrate a shared understanding and use of slang to prove they are not 'normies.' This creates immense selection pressure to adopt and innovate language within its constrained, text-only format. This leads to the rapid creation and diffusion of new words and memes. Phrases like 'jester gooning,' 'maxing,' and 'gooning' emerge from this environment. While these words can seem nonsensical, their meaning is in their social function: they signal belonging and cultural awareness within specific online communities. The "mid-jesteru maxing at the club" incident, for instance, is another example where the phrase's viral potential and its connection to internet figures like Clvicular were more important than its literal definition. This intentional use of keywords resonates with the algorithm and viewers, solidifying group identity.
The influence of AI on language: The rise of 'delve' and algorithmic bias.
AI, particularly large language models like ChatGPT, is demonstrably influencing language usage. Studies show a significant spike in the usage of words like 'delve' since ChatGPT's release. This phenomenon is driven by several factors, including biases in the reinforcement learning process. For instance, while some reinforcement workers might use 'delve' more frequently due to regional dialect, a primary driver is the model's 'Latin-based bias.' AI models are often trained to sound more sophisticated and confident, leading them to favor Latin-derived words (like 'delve' or 'commendable') over their Germanic counterparts (like 'dig in' or 'praiseworthy'). This 'prestige' bias, coupled with the need for reinforcement workers to confirm phrases that sound familiar or 'correct,' inadvertently reinforces these word choices. The AI's tendency to favor words that sound incisive and confident, such as those found in negative parallelism structures often seen on platforms like LinkedIn, also influences human speech patterns. This creates a feedback loop where AI is trained on human language, and then human language begins to adopt the patterns reinforced by AI, potentially leading to a homogenization and a subtle shift in our linguistic reality.
The extinction of languages and the homogenization of global expression.
The rapid evolution of language is leading to a concerning linguistic crisis: a mass extinction of languages. It is predicted that a significant portion of the world's approximately 7,000 languages will disappear by the end of the century. This loss is more than just the disappearance of words; it represents the eradication of unique ways of expressing reality and diverse cultural perspectives. For example, the Podawatomi concept of 'to be a Saturday' as an embodied verb highlights how different languages offer unique conceptual frameworks that enrich human expression. The homogeneity driven by globalized digital platforms and algorithmic constraints limits the creative potential for expression. While humans are tenacious in finding ways to express themselves, even in the face of censorship (like 'algo-speak' emerging in response to content moderation), the pervasive influence of algorithms and AI is subtly shaping not just our language but also our ideas and our collective sense of reality by privileging certain types of discourse and expression over others. This includes the movement of the 'Overton window' which determines the range of acceptable discourse, potentially shifting towards trends like 'looks maxing'.
Social media, AI, and the financial incentive to manipulate language.
The architecture of social media and the rise of AI are creating powerful incentives to manipulate language for profit. The attention economy, where user attention is monetized and commodified, means that content creators and platforms are driven to capture and retain attention at all costs. This elevates words, phrases, and topics that grab attention, often at the expense of nuanced or complex ideas. Furthermore, financial incentives, such as those seen in meme coin trading, create a direct link between the virality of an idea and financial gain. This can lead to 'flooding the zone' with misinformation or specific narratives to profit from them. Malicious actors, including companies and even foreign governments armed with powerful data dashboards, are actively seeding ideas into the information ecosystem to influence public opinion and behavior. This constitutes 'information warfare' where language is weaponized to achieve specific, often financial or political, agendas, making a skeptical and investigative approach to online content crucial.
The performance of identity and the arbitrary nature of social constructs.
What we perceive as identity, including gender and generational labels, is largely performative and socially constructed. Linguistically, this manifests in how we adopt specific speech patterns and slang to signal belonging to certain groups, whether it's a 'lifestyle influencer accent' or the slang associated with the manosphere. The concept of 'generations' like Gen Z, for example, is a relatively recent social construct that emerged in the early 1900s and has become increasingly salient as a marketing tool. The pressure to identify with or against these labels leads to self-branding and the performance of specific roles. Similarly, masculinity has evolved dramatically throughout history, from ancient Roman ideals to modern 'chad GPT' aesthetics, demonstrating its arbitrary and fluid nature. Even phenomena like the 'gay accent' can be understood as a performance of gay identity, historically serving as a coded way to signal to others within a marginalized community. Ultimately, while we strive for individualism, the desire for belonging drives us to adopt these performative identities, often influenced by the media we consume and the narratives that gain traction.
Mentioned in This Episode
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Common Questions
'67' was voted word of the year in 2025 by dictionary.com, but its main purpose is to be a reference that, when uttered, makes content go viral. It's a joke critiquing the information ecosystem and highlights 'clip farming' as a future of online distribution. It's designed to incite curiosity, proving that absurdity can have meaning.
Topics
Mentioned in this video
Mentioned as an organization that chose '67' as word of the year for marketing purposes, highlighting 'big dictionary's' ploy to sell more dictionaries.
Mentioned in the context of choosing 'rage bait' as their word of the year, similar to 'dictionary.com' using it as a marketing ploy to spark controversy and drive attention to their brand.
An organization mentioned in relation to Tristan Harris's views on AI development, particularly concerning the prioritization of training speed over safety and alignment in AI models.
Where the guest took a conlanging class, further developing his interest in constructed languages.
Doing 'amazing bird stuff,' including a bird tracking app used to follow bird migrations, relevant to the discussion of animal communication and language.
A Connecticut house representative who used the term '67' on the state floor, participating in the virality trend. He's described as cashing in on the trend, similar to the basketball player who started it.
A basketball player who started the '67' trend, becoming an early example of clip farming for virality.
Cited as an early influencer whose speaking style contributed to the 'lifestyle influencer accent', tracing its origins.
Taught the speaker a 'floor holding' debate tactic inspired by Christopher Hitchens, where one pauses mid-sentence to maintain audience attention before continuing.
Cited as an early educational influencer whose speech style likely influenced the host's 'educational influencer accent', creating a lineage of such styles.
A sociologist from the 1960s, author of 'The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life,' whose work explains how individuals adopt 'faces' or 'roles' in society, performing different versions of themselves based on context.
Used as an example to illustrate the evolving visual definition of masculinity; his action figures over time become increasingly muscular, caricaturing traits of masculinity.
A character from the movie 'Mean Girls' who famously tried to popularize the word 'fetch,' but failed because it felt forced, illustrating the limits of top-down language dictation.
Author of 'The Etymologicon,' whose work inspired the guest to pursue etymology and linguistics. His insights on language patterns, like 'holding patterns' in speech, were also discussed.
Described as a 'mad uncle' who speaks with precision but includes 'parentheses of noise' (filler words) that provide breathing room, similar to 'foreplay and post-coital talking talk' in conversation.
From the Center for Humane Technology, he highlighted that all platforms, despite outward appearances, prioritize rapid model training for performance, raising concerns about alignment and safety.
Referenced as an early influencer who, along with Kim Kardashian and beauty YouTubers, influenced the modern 'lifestyle influencer accent'.
Known for a debate tactic where he would pause halfway through a sentence to keep the audience's attention and buy himself time to think, an example of 'floor holding'.
Mentioned as a predecessor to early educational influencers like Hank Green and Vsauce, suggesting that linguistic styles trickle down through generations of content creators.
His song was played at a Miami club, resulting in a single video being broken down and shared extensively online, illustrating how content is repurposed for maximum distribution.
Doesn't hide that he tweaks his AI model, Grok, to align with his political preferences, serving as an example of transparent (though potentially biased) AI influence on language and ideas.
A fighter featured in a Gym Shark grassroots social media campaign where a fake CCTV video of him breaking a door was used to promote the brand through a burner Reddit account, demonstrating engineered virality.
Referenced in the context of ideas spreading like a virus through populations, a model used to understand information dissemination in social networks.
Author of 'Brave New World,' whose vision of societal control through entertainment and passive consumption is seen as more relevant than Orwell's 1984.
Described as a powerful linguistic engine shaping language more than anything else, driving linguistic innovation and faster slang cycles due to its user interface fostering conversation and algorithmic trends.
Identified as a linguistic incubator for decades due to its anonymity, which fostered a selection pressure for users to demonstrate shared slang proficiency. Many incel words and mainstream slang words originated there.
Mentioned alongside 4chan and Twitter as an original platform where many words and slang used to originate from.
Mentioned as a platform contributing to word origins, distinct from LinkedIn and TikTok, fostering linguistic play and unique dialects.
Mentioned as a platform where videos often delay gratification, holding the payoff until the end, similar to live streaming tactics.
A fitness apparel brand whose hybrid shorts and seamless t-shirts are highly recommended for durability, lightweight design, and sweat-wicking properties, offering a 30-day return policy and international shipping.
A brand that created Fiber Plus, a three-in-one formula for digestion, gut barrier strength, and blood sugar stability, recommended with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Powers 10% of US e-commerce, driving brands like Gym Shark and Skims. Highlighted for its best-in-class conversion tools, 36% better checkout, and 50% conversion boost with Shop Pay, allowing businesses to focus on product creation.
A brand powered by Shopify, illustrating Shopify's role as a driving force behind major e-commerce companies.
Described as a platform with a distinct 'professional' dialect, contrasting with the linguistic playfulness of Twitter or fandom language of TikTok.
A brand powered by Shopify, serving as an example of a successful e-commerce company that benefits from Shopify's platform.
Praised for thinking more about AI alignment and safety compared to other platforms, though the speaker warns against complacency due to underlying business incentives.
A brand offering non-alcoholic brews that taste good, allowing consumers to enjoy the ritual of drinking without the hangover. Recommended for its variety and 15% off first online order.
Discussed as an AI platform that, like others, is primarily driven by making money, contrasting with Anthropic's (perceived) greater focus on alignment and safety.
A platform that conducted a study in 2022 on the origins of words over time, showing a shift from platforms like 4chan and Reddit to TikTok and Twitter.
A Brazilian martial art developed by enslaved Africans that looks like dance to evade military rule, serving as an analogy for marginalized groups using coded forms of expression.
Its usage has led to a significant spike in words like 'delve' due to biases in its reinforcement learning process, influencing human speech patterns and even the language of British politicians and academic abstracts.
The speaker's own company, which uses Shopify's checkout system, highlighting Shopify's effectiveness in converting browsers into buyers.
A feature of Shopify that can boost e-commerce conversions by up to 50%, mentioned as a key benefit of the platform.
Elon Musk's AI model, mentioned as an example of an AI whose outputs are openly tweaked to align with its creator's political preferences, highlighting potential biases in AI development.
A subcommunity on Reddit mentioned as the platform used for a grassroots social media campaign promoting Francis Ngannou and Gymshark, illustrating how specific online communities can be targeted for viral marketing.
Mentioned as an activity performed by 'wellness influencers' on yoga mats, within a 'hyper aestheticized sanitized clean girl thing' that performs the idea of wellness rather than true well-being.
Used as a substitutive emoji to censor the word 'ice' in protests, highlighting how emojis can replace words to avoid algorithmic detection.
Used as an example of an emoji whose meaning has constantly changed, from literal crying to laughing, and now sometimes seen ironically.
Originally meant literal laughter, then ironic laughter, and is now considered 'cringe' by some, particularly younger generations, unless used ironically to signal 'boomer' status.
A micro-language created in England and used specifically by gay people to evade detection by police when homosexuality was illegal. It's an example of how marginalized communities subvert traditional language norms.
A gay micro-language from the Philippines, mentioned as an example of how gay communities globally create their own linguistic subversions due to historical marginalization.
Featured in a court case where its legal meaning (acknowledgment vs. direct agreement) was debated in the context of a grain shipment contract, illustrating the fluidity and legal implications of emoji definitions.
Referenced as a framework that, like any single framework, can be reductive and constrain one's worldview, suggesting that multiple frameworks are necessary for a comprehensive understanding.
Mentioned for its expression 'to be a Saturday,' highlighting how some languages offer unique ways to perceive and articulate the world that are lost when they die.
The range of acceptable discourse in society, which moves as public consensus changes, impacting what ideas become thinkable or acceptable (e.g., gay marriage, 'looksmaxing').
A famous constructed language (conlang) that attempted to become a global, evidence-based, and precise language but didn't work out, highlighting challenges in designing universal languages.
A book by Irving Goffman that describes how people adopt roles and faces in different social contexts—like 'on stage' versus 'off stage'—to communicate in specific ways.
A movie where a character famously tried to make the word 'fetch' happen, demonstrating the resistance people feel when a word is intentionally forced upon them.
A book written by Mark Forsyth that inspired the guest to get into etymology, leading him to study linguistics and become an influencer in the field.
Another book by Mark Forsyth, mentioned by the host in the context of the guest's interest in etymology.
A book that provides an example of the rich expression lost when languages die, specifically mentioning the Potawatomi expression 'to be a Saturday' as a verb embodying the day.
The guest's own book, which discusses how social media changes language, particularly in response to censorship. It cites examples like 'ice emoji' and 'unalive' as new words or symbols emerging to bypass algorithms.
Aldous Huxley's novel, which the speaker believes is a more accurate projection for society than 1984, where people are entertained to the point of not realizing they are in a dictatorship, and language is not truly constrained.
An alternative keyboard layout that was tried but not widely adopted, contrasting with QWERTY's historical dominance despite its inefficiency.
Designed to be inefficient by placing most-used letters on the edges to prevent typewriter jams. It is purposefully built to be slow, illustrating how historical constraints can lead to suboptimal standards.
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