Coolso media, that's going excusing.
So the Internet is changing the way you talk and hold people's attention, and it's literally changing the way that we communicate on a fundamental level.
Oh okay, you guys didn't like that.
Okay, let's try this delivery of the message instead. The last year. Okay, for this, you do have to imagine that I'm doing my makeup effortlessly while openly trauma dumping. Let's get the music going again.
Okay.
The last year, during the peak of my career, I uprooted my life after getting no fault evicted from my apartment so two Vegas venture capital dickheads could move in, which they definitely didn't, and move back to New England to be with my dad. And the real reason was that I wanted to date some guy in Maine who ultimately broke up with me after showing me David Cronenberg's The Fly, which I think about a lot.
How is that?
Are you listening? Are you paying attention? Because in certain algorithms, these two approaches that I just tried makeup trauma dumping and screaming like there's a bomb in the room, these two approaches are still the easiest way to get people's attention in short form algorithms. There's more ways than that, obviously, but these are kind of the time honored traditions. Personally, I skew more towards reckless oversharing than Volume one thousand alarmists.
But if you're neither, yeah, you might have a hard time reaching people on the Internet. Right now, this is sixteenth Minute, the podcast where most weeks we talk too and about the Internet's characters of the day, but this week it's a side quest episode. Today we're going to speak to a gen Z linguist about how the algorithm has fundamentally changed language and what the implications of that
might be. And I have to say, I feel so fucking old talking about this, But the term for these ways that we communicate to break through to the algorithm is called algo speak.
Basically, the way we.
Perform for the algorithm in order to capture not even people's attention necessarily, but the algorithm's attention that delivers our content to people. We've talked about it a lot on this show. I've talked to reporters on the subject and to content creators who are beholden to it. And yeah, it's easy to dunk on these pretty identifiable passes to get our attention through speech, through memes, through editing techniques,
through duration of video. But when you're living depends on it, and the algorithm itself remains opaque.
What option do.
You have but to play the game start a podcast, of course, although in a podcast environment that is increasingly reliant on video clips posted two algorithm spaces like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, that's increasingly untrue. But our guest today, who is both a professional linguist and a hashtag content hashtag creator, thinks that this is a very important conversation to have, and I agree because most recently he feels that it's fundamentally changed the way that our elections are run.
So as a treat here's my conversation with the etymology Nerd aka Adam Alexic, a Harvard educated linguist who's built a career across social media platforms talking about linguistics and more specifically algo speak since he was a teenager.
Babe, Wake Up.
The Oxford English diction just published their shortlist for the twenty twenty four Ward of the Year. The top contenders so far include brain Row, Demuur and Lore, but the one I've had my eye on the most is slot for low quality AI generated content.
He's also written a book called Algo Speak, How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language that will be published next year, and he came on to tell us how the algorithmic communication has and will continue to change how we understand each other and who our words can reach.
Here's our conversation.
Hi, I'm Adam on the Internet. I'm known as etymology Nerd. I'm a content creator and a linguist focusing on how social media is changing language.
I am so glad that you are working on what you're doing, and that you're a content creator as well. In my experience, most of what I've se about algorithmic speak is by people who aren't creating content themselves. It feels a little disjointed. How did you first get interested in etymology? Was content creation first?
Was this interest for How did this sort of come together for you as a career?
Right?
Yeah, what you just said is super interesting because I don't think you can properly study it unless you're also in the weeds yourself, Like, unless you're like on TikTok yourself. You can't like talk about the new TikTok words or how algorithms are shaping. Like if you feel it as a creator, you really do feel it, And academic linguistics is like super far behind. I mean, you need to make sure a word sticks around, you need to make
sure it works as a research paper or something. And by the time these guys have all their PhDs, they're thirty years old and they're not caught up with the new stuff anymore.
Their internet ancient, right right.
So my story as I started, I just started with like an etymology blog. I was talking about word origins since like tenth grade. So I've been running that for like a while. Then I was graduating college with a linguistics degree, and I started having to asked myself the same question everybody with a linguistics degree ask themselves, which is like, what do I do now? And that's when
I started making content. And so for about a year and a half now, I've been making short form videos on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Yeah, as the.
Atomologineer and done a lot of fun. But I have felt kind of this interesting balance between my content creator side and my linguist side, and I keep studying both myself and every time I'm on social media just consuming it passively. I also can't really turn off the little more analytical part, like why are they saying it this way?
Why is it phrasing this way?
You know, I totally agree that actually pay our content creator yourself is kind of important to understanding it, just like the internal anxiety of like, if I don't make this adjustment, I will totally functionally disappear in this space.
And we are ultimately like super subservient to whatever the whims of the algorithm are. I remember last summer, TikTok announced that they are now only to be paying people who make videos longer than a minute. So now all of our content, which used to be like under a minute, that's how it started out, subtly, I had to shift to slightly medium form if that was short form. The way we're telling our stories changes with that. What's crazy to me is that, like our stories, our storytelling is
always shaped by the medium in which we communicate. When we didn't have writing or whatever, we used oral tradition and we had to rhyme our stories because that was the only way to remember, like the long chunks of text like the Odyssey or whatever.
Our stories were shaped by the lack of a written medium.
And then we have written mediums and we start using chapters, and we start breaking down things in the subdivision, and our stories again change. We serialize things with newspapers or storytelling is changing with our medium. And again now we are in this algorithmic medium where the way we communicate is shaped by the algorithm. It's respondent to what the algorithm awards, and in the end, that's always engagement optimization.
When it comes to communicating and needing to work around the algorithm to communicate effectively. Or I guess to the most people, what are there any common misconceptions that you see either on the content creation inside or just in the way that it's perceived by people who don't make this stuff.
Maybe not a misconception per se, but an interesting miscommunication that inevitably is going to happen every single time someone talks to someone on the internet. When I make a video, I maybe have like an idea of who my audience is. I like have a general concept of who's going to consume my video, But in the end, the algorithm is going to push that to whoever the algorithm pushes to They might push that to a different audience. They might push this to a larger or smaller group than I thought,
and maybe a completely different demographic. And so I'm miscommunicating inherently in what I say. In the algorithmic sense. This is especially sailing when we think about filter bubbles and how words can travel, ideas can travel out of echo chambers and to the broader population when they spread as memes. It's something that it's very hard to think about because you consume content and you're like, oh, this was made for me, and I make content. I think, oh, I'm
making this for whoever's going to consume it. There's a lot of nodes in this network that are completely lost when think about what an insane mess social media is.
If you like zoom out.
Going to your piece a little bit.
I really appreciated how you pretty clearly contextualize this communication shift that you're talking about, and you specifically use the term viral communication.
Can you tell me a little bit about what that is?
Yeah, In the past, public communication has always differed from one to one. Private communication for just having a conversation, it's just you and me, right, But if I'm speaking on a soapbox to a crowd. Everybody in the crowd is going to hear my message, and that's called broadcast communication. One person broadcasting their message. And traditionally media has had this type of broadcast communication over the radio. The example I used in the substack posts you talked about was
FDR during his fireside chats. He would just send his message out to sixty million Americans. You use it to dispel misinformation and use it to explain his policies. But it's one person broadcasting their message to sixty million Americans at once. There's no scrolling away, there's no sharing this to another, you know, to a friend. It's just one person to a bunch of people. And with most media it's been like that radio television, it's people who tune
in and hear the message. Since the late twenty tens, we've had a huge shift towards viral communication, which is a different style away from badcast communication. Viral communication depends on shares, and it depends on engagement. And if I send out a message on my TikTok, it's not going to immediately be seen by sixty million Americans. That'd be crazy, and no politician can speak like that anymore. Joe Biden, Kamala, Donald Trump. These people cannot immediately send their message to
six million Americans. They have to rely also on the algorithm. That means that they have to make their message such as the algorithm spreads it. And the algorithm is only going to spread your message if it's good at getting interaction, if it's good for the platform, because the platforms business priorities always come first, and their priorities are to keep you on the app for as long as possible. So they're going to see if the initial message gets interactions,
gets shares, and then they're going to push it further. Also, the shares themselves are going to push it. But it's this sort of structure where instead of a top down one person to a bunch of people communication, it's one person to some people to a little more people and then it spreads from there, but through this network where more and more people are getting their content from some previous person up the line who's already consumed it.
How do we see these algorithms attempt to be gammed by different candidates and different campaigns. Were there things that stuck out to you as particularly effective or like oh no, the whatever the boomers wifted it on this one.
A lot of the stuff is stuff people have been worrying about since twenty sixteen, like echo chambers and filter bubbles. What I said earlier about this audience you think you're speaking to is not the audience you're speaking to. And meme based communication I think is also critical, so one they can build up their core filter bubbles. The Kamala people had everybody was consuming their Brat videos. Everybody who was watching Brad videos was voting for Kamla. But no,
none of the Trump supporters were getting that. And all the Trump supporters are getting completely different style of content like probably the same people are getting like Haktua and What's Up Brother videos like more in the Mana sphere like this kind of entirely different group that the Brat people are not getting these videos at all. So we have these like two separate filter bubbles. Occasionally memes do trickle out and through these filter bubbles, but with memes
always spread ideas. And I really like to say that language is interchangeable with memes on the Internet, and that's all interchangeable with metadata too, because whatever the algorithm picks up as like this is trending. Oh, if Brat is trending, then it's going to push Brat as a trending thing, because algorithms push trends to keep you on the app.
And then creators make more Brat content they want to make a living, and then consumers consume more Brat content, and so we're in this cycle of it becoming more and more trendy, and so trends are blown up from niche communities. Sometimes ideas do stay in these communities, but sometimes they blow up on a larger scale. And this is especially important when we're talking about communicating political ideas.
Back in twenty sixteen, we had like Pepe the Frog, we had all these sort of extremes ideas that like, you don't understand how crazy it gets at the core of the filter bubble, like the cats and dogs type stuff that like people on the firpree don't see on the on the like the super deep like part of Facebook where they are spreading these memes that it's not something like a lot of people and more progressive chambers are hearing at all, and we're hearing maybe things that
sound a little more sane on the outside but like deep in the center, like the people who are most inside this network are getting the Q and on immigrants eating our pets kind of thing.
I think for the people outside of that bubble, hearing that comment for the first time is completely shocking. Where if you're inside of this separate, algorithmic bubble, it's something you've been hearing for a while.
You're in very different chambers.
And the style of political communication to one audience doesn't reach a broad audience. So it's sort of a new style of dog whistling almost where you can expect your core group to hear this really radical message, let's say, and then on the outside is more palatable. And if you're not super deep into the groups.
Yeah, are there examples that you can think of of people It doesn't need to be a politician who have been able to navigate around this to cut through or is it just impossible to.
Do at this point?
It's impossib unless using badcast communication. I think if you're using viral communication, you need to be communicating in different ways. I as a creator, I make some videos that I know aren't going to go viral, but I know that they're for my core audience who cares about like linguistic passion, So I make sometimes like more niche linguistic topics that I think my core audience is going to like, so I retain my core audience. And then I also make
these broader, relatable videos about language and names. Names are very popular likes to share to the people who have this name or whatever, or trends, trending words, things that get interactions and are pushburger in the algorithm. So I know ahead of time a lot of times that my videos are going to do better than other videos. But I'm making them for different kind of groups. I know somewhere for my core groups, some are for my outside groups.
In the end, though, I am modifying my speech for what I think is going to go viral, and I make videos about things that are trending because I know that's the best way to reach a bigger audience.
From a creative standpoint, having to navigate and observe this constantly changing algorithm, do you find at all creatively invigorating as someone who who's making stuff all the time. Is it frustrating?
Are there things?
Because this is something that I have felt at different points, there are things that I would love to put out into the world.
But sometimes you're like, I really.
Think no one would see this just based on what I've seen cut through totally.
On a personal level, it's easy to feel frustrated that I have to conform my speech. I talk in a different accent online because I know it's like better for retaining my audience.
I use more extreme language.
I have to sometimes issue nuance, like I can't get as into the weeds as I would like to get and sometimes something can be misconstrued.
You know.
I try to present things as best as I can, but inevitably something will be lost. I do think on another level, like people always artists throughout history, I've always had to conform to their medium like but fundamentally, I do think there are also patterns in what retain human attention, Like superlative language has always been good for getting our attention. That's not a new human behavior.
We'll be right back with more of my chat with Adam. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I recently realized that one of my cats is more or less a Ringer visually and behavior wise, or Donkey from Shrek. Somebody, and here's the rest of my conversation with Adam Alexic the etymology Nerd.
I want to ask a little bit about specifically about that the vocal shift, because as I was, I read that in your piece, but I was like, I want to understand when you're shifting your voice, what are you shifting it towards?
How are you shifting inflection?
What is like TikTok voice that you've found to be effective.
Well, I call it the influencer accent.
And there is there's the most stereotype one like the hey guys, say, I'm doing my makeup routine. There's like a little up talk there. There's like, uh, maybe sometimes we'll do a little vocal fry. They'll stress certain words to keep your attention. Now, I don't do that style. There are many different styles. That's that's the most like cliched one. There's I do what I call an educational influencer action, Like I still I stress certain words, I
sound really excited. I'm gonna talk to you like this and it's gonna hold your attention for a minute because that's what I need to do. But also you'll see people like mister beasts as well. If you look at any mister Beast video, this man does not speak like that in real life, not even close, and like he's.
Also gonna exaggerate. Everything's gonna say, I just built this huge island. I'd throw a bunch of influencers on like it's gonna talk like this, right.
These are all different accents, but all geared to getting your attention, and there are some similarities.
They'll they're typically used up talk.
You hang on every last word because it sounds like it's unfinished, so he keeps going and you want to hear most. I'm gonna I'm still gonna stress certain words because if your attention starts to drift and I say something that sounds important, you're gonna lock back in and you're less likely to scroll away. Yeah, the influencer actions would coming in different styles. All kind of do evolve out of this attempt to hold on to your attention.
When I returned to old content that I like, like for example, if I'm going back to a like YouTube video essay that I enjoyed five years ago, it sounds different, the length is different, the delivery is different, the visuals that you would see a lot around that time are different, and it is like you're saying an extension of art but it feels fascinating that you're like, oh, if this came out today, I don't know, you know, if it ever would.
Have reached me.
Mister Beasts just one of his employees leaked a manual about a month ago of like is like Mister Beast's Handbook to succeeding in Mister Beasts productions, And it was this book he wrote for his employees about like how he goes viral, and I found it fascinating both on linguistic level and as a creator again kind of looking at this from both lenses. But he explicitly mentioned in the book that he wants to make things as extreme as possible. He wants to constantly he talks about retention
so much. Every single page talks about re multiple times, because that is the one thing you really need to hold on to the audience. And then then YouTube's going to push the video to more people. So it's like this kind of top level. You hit your first group, you retain that audience, and then YouTube's like, oh, people like this, so they send it to more people and that's viral communication.
Again, mister Piece is so diabolical, it's he's quite scary.
He's very intentional with it.
It's like he's yeah, like you read the handbook, and I mean, any I'm manipulating you. Any creator is manipulating you. If we're going viral, that means we are playing with your emotions and your attention. The only way to get attention is to do that. Like as if I say this is the best something, this is the most interesting something.
That's usually how I start my videos, like with some kind of crazy claim like that, and then that manipulates you a little bit because you're like, wow, the best something. I mean, there's a lot of interesting somethings, but only one thing can be the most interesting something. So now now I hooked you by playing with the psychological thing that all humans have.
That's another sort of shift I've noticed in my own media consumption habits over over time, where even if it's a creator I really like, usually I will not ignore, but like assume that how they open the video is probably exaggerated or not true something that you're like, okay, I trust that they'll get to the nuance, but that can't be right, right.
It's a it's a bit of a deal with a doubt because like if I mean I at least feel like I'm trying to make good content. I feel like a lot of people also feel that. But you cannot be successfuls and influenci unless you somewhat play into these things. And I mean on a personal level, I just try to strike a balance where I do, like try to cite my sources in my video. I do try to like not make like actually fake claims, but just maybe have purplyized like slightly to the point of where I'm
still not like misinforming. But it's it's it's something I think about frequently and as I consume other media and think about that a lot.
When you are because you're creating content on multiple platforms, do you change your presentation from platform to platform?
If so, what does that look like?
Great question?
So for tik talk and Instagram, I'm just posting like the same one minute video across all platforms. Most creators do that for like the short videos, so there's a lot of similarity between those three platforms. I'm branching onto long form YouTube, where I do speak a little more relaxed and have.
Less of this feeling of pressure.
And I also spend a lot of time recently writing on substack and I just finished writing a book, and these are super long form and I can really nuance my thoughts, and I think it's most authentic to how I actually want to communicate. But even for books, I modify, like I use maybe more correct English grammar whatever that means, but less less like colloquial slang usage than I might use in a video. And the slang usage is actually
maybe more authentic to how I speak casually. So there are each medium does constrain you in different ways, and that's I don't want to be too alarmist about this. I don't want to come in and say like, this is the end of the English language that like every languist tries to tell people, it's never going to be the ying.
That way to start the video, right, which is this the end.
Of the English language is yeah, let's find.
Out that that is actually One of the few things I do find creatively interest is like, if I have to express this idea in three different ways, can I do it effectively in three different ways?
That's like one of the elements I find a little more fun.
I really like about the Internet is that it has democratized to public communication. So in the past, like I mentioned FDR because the few examples we have of people who really were using broadcast communication were the elites, like the politicians, the reporters, the people who all went through like elite universities or whatever, who all have like fancy jobs.
These are the only people who are able to communicate you. In the past.
And since YouTube, since now, especially now in short form video platforms, anybody has this platform, the elites no longer control communication, and in that sense, there's less maybe manufacturing consent of what media you're getting. There's more people criticizing the governing, which I think.
Is a good thing.
I think that's our democratization seems pretty good to me. And on another level, on the linguistic level, there's less of that formalization of language because when language is controlled by elites, they're going to impose their grammatical rules, like oh, you have to capitalize this or not use this word or whatever. On TikTok, people just talk how they authentically
talk a little bit closer to that. At least, there there's more slang words happening because of that, because they feel like they're able to use the language that they want to use, and I think that's pretty great, so again for pros and cons here, I do think it's not universally categorically bad.
The way that you closed your piece that what you cited a speech that I had not heard of but on paper is incredibly weird because you know, you say.
Adam, the stigmas of Australia, the government is best Australian senator who like used brainwrot words in her speech about how this government is capping and then she urges you to vote for a government with more aura. But like, let's look at why she's using that language. She's using that language because she knows that clip of her is going to go viral. It's very clever in her part
and it did. It did go super viral and multiple platforms because she used this kind of language which evokes like, which gets shares, which like gets people's attention, so paradoxically, like it feeds back into itself.
That's so rare.
A shout out to the twenty two year old that almost certainly wrote that we are constantly presented with the idea of the in the US in particular, and there's truth to it, but I feel like it's more complicated based on what you're describing that, you know, politics are getting crazier or politics are getting.
Weirder or worse.
But I think what your work sort of indicates is sure, that may be true, but also there is some strategy to behaving in a more elevated way if you want to get your message to anybody, like you can't really.
Be boring, right, But it's an underline, like I do keep coming back to this thing with any linguistic change that I writer talk about, that these are still underlying human behaviors.
We're still humans.
That's not changed, right, And humans always going to adapt to their medium, and they're always going to be using language in new ways and changing it. And we're just doing that in a new way, which is short form video, And that is worth talking about because because it does somewhat change.
Your language as well.
Emergently, it's caused new words to emerge faster, and it's caused memes to come and go quicker than they used to. So like a word might be popular, like demurre was popular for like a week, and then it was like,
at least in my circles, it's not being used. I talked to my my ten year old cousin the other day and she and her friends all say demure still, and I couldn't help thinking about the filter bubble thing that, like maybe I was in the initial filter bubble of who like Jules Lebron was talking to when she started making the demure videos, but now it's filtered down to middle schoolers, and middle schoolers are they're not consuming that content, but they're getting it from people who are using it,
and so like it trickles down almost to all the people. So words and ideas the same. This is also like an idea spreading with that. And I talked to my twelve year old male causin he was talking about sigmas and I don't know that word emerged out of the man of spherest so like, I don't think he's like getting like black filled here. But it is like interesting how these ideas and words travel through networks and filter down to children. And that's maybe something I'm a little
concerned about. But also the words themselves I've just dressed are not bad maybe just yeah.
Yeah, it's it's definitely a double edged sword.
I think I have a tendency to be a bit of an algorithm alarmist, partially in the way it causes people to communicate, but also just the opaqueness of it.
Absolutely, the opaqueness is something that that constantly just really deeply frustrates me as a creator. Instagram doesn't give you customer support unless you've purchased metaverified. TikTok doesn't tell you anything nless you're in their special like secret TikTok program. Even so, like they don't communicate to creators really what their expectations are. They might just take down a video or they might just whatever. So creators are like especially
afraid to take on the algorithm. And that's like how we get outgo speak like words like unlive instead of like suicide or something because you're afraid it. But like you can still say the word suicide. Just the algorithm might suppress your video, it might not. They don't even tell you we're getting like productive language changed happening because of people being afraid of the algorithm or people trying to hijack the algorithm in ways that they they might
might work, might not even work. But if you start by using a certain word, like you say Sigmas of Australia, that probably is gonna better for the algorithm. But it's also gonna perpetuate the word stigma, and then maybe my my twelve year old cousin starts using it. Personally, I try to also not use algorithms as much as possible. I don't like how Spotify pushes the same trending song every time I finish a playlist, so I've turned off
the AutoPlay. I don't like like on TikTok. I sometimes get like a video of like somebody playing jazz, and I really like listening to jazz, but I feel this urge to scroll away, and I ask myself, what is this urge coming for my Because my brain wants the dopamine hit It was slightly better next video, So I've been sort of trying to train myself to stop and listen to the jazz video. In its entirety, it is rough because we are kind of getting trained to have shorter attention spans, for sure.
The algo speak is also something I find really fascinating and also seems to have shifted as time goes on. I don't you know fault any creator for having to use it, but it is it is interesting to me in terms like unalive terms like particularly grape always really rubs me the wrong way, but weirdly ends up. It feels like kind of minimizing very serious things and almost like suppressing or not encouraging people to talk about, you know, serious issues.
I don't know.
I absolutely think that there is sort of a trend towards infantile language when we use replacement vocabulary, so like look at eggs instead of sex, or I do think great instead of.
I do think.
Like a lot of are on alive sounds a little more childish than suicide, right, so, I think. But it's because a lot of these words are coming out of memes which are made by young people, and young people like using kind of fun sounding childish language. There is a whole separate debate about whether or not this is
good or bad. I've talked to a lot of middle school teachers and guidance counselors about unlive, and some of them feel like, yeah, they're not able to talk about the serious topic, which is concerning, But other people are saying, actually, it's opening up conversations. It's allowing middle schoolers to Some middle schoolers are learning the word on alive before the word suicide, and it's allowing them to have these conversations, especially when they're using the word as a genuine euphemism.
Sixty percent of the middle school teachers I talk to are say that their kids are using on alive primarily as the euphemism for when they don't want to use kill. So I one teacher said, the students submitted an essay on Hamlet unliving himself, and another one had a classroom discussion the unliving that happens in Doctor Jekyl and Mister Hyde. Kids genuinely think this is like a serious euphemism for kill that sounds maybe nicer. Say so, like, we're seeing
this online speak turn into the offline. And I actually the title of my book which is coming out it is I'll go speak how social media is changing a language that's that's available now, and I talk about a lot more.
That is really fascinating to me. And in a way that you're like, that's just a lateral language shift. That's pretty interesting that in twenty years you could you could have someone in public office saying on alive and be totally serious.
I think we're joking about it now. I'm very sure that it's going to be a thing.
That is really fascinating and an interesting way to sort of accelerate the growth of how we use language, how we talk, like how we talk about very serious issues. And then there's the cynical part of me that it's like it will never feel normal for me to hear of forty five year old man say SIGs.
I just never want to hear it.
It's definitely the future.
So I know it.
I love love it, love it, love it.
I think there's a lot of kind of Poe terminosity with the memes and the metadata and the language, which I keep trying to spread this message that they are the same thing. Now, Like Riz trended last year because it was a hashtag, like or not necessarily a hashtag, but like the audio, like the algorithm picked up on that as a trending term. So it is metadata and creators are using it because they know it's a piece
of trending metadata. But it's also a meme at the same time, it's like a funny riz meme whatever, and then but it's also a word. So the word is the meme is the piece of information for the algorithm,
and they love categorizing us, they love tagging us. That's I think there's been a lot of new words for categorizing ourselves and our identities, whether it's like cottage, core, unquoquette, or like all these new micro labels all also emerge out of the algorithm trying to find more information about us and then turning those into trends, which are also words. So it's all kind of connected to itself in that way.
My last question for you, this is a podcast about main characters of the Internet, which is I feel like an increasingly challenging and rare phenomenon to sort of nail down because of, like you're saying, how quickly the algorithm tends to move. Now, So with regards to this show, I mean, because you spend so much time professionally and academically within the algorithm, do you feel that we will continue to get Internet main characters in the way we
once did? Will that change? How do you Where do you see that going?
I think it's fascinating that you're putting this emphasis on the main character. I think there's been a trend towards the Internet's trying to make you feel like you're the main character of the time. It's narrativizing. It's it's like, when why are all these memes starting with PUOV. They're
inviting you to experience something firsthand. That's why we talk about why we're in our era for something, why this is something like we're explaining our lore, We're explaining our you know something arc but like we tend to serialize our own lives and pretend like we have this main character syndrome, like we're going on side quests.
Really, I think all our lives are kind of meaningless, but.
It feels good to not think that, which is why the algorithm has been pushing stuff that makes you feel good, makes you interact with the content and share more. So I think the reason we're all I think we're all going to be main characters in our heads because that's what the Internet is telling us.
WHOA Well you heard it here first everyone, you are, in fact the main character. Thank you so much to Adam, who you can find everywhere. He's got over half a million followers on TikTok, a million on Instagram, half a million on YouTube. This guy knows his damn Algo to follow him to keep learning more, and you can also pre order his book now.
At the link in the description.
And next week we begin our next deep dive into the era of personified brands. I'm talking Denny's being the most popular girl on Tumblr. I'm talking Wendy's Twitter feuds of the twenty tens. I'm talking woke stakums during COVID. I'm talking the duo lingo bird getting murdered for clout a couple weeks ago. How did American marketing arrive at a language at bird swimming and piss the bone? Chilling history starts next week. See you then, please don't say segs.
And for your moment of fun, here is that brain WRT. Australian politicians speech. Adam and I were talking about from Fatima payment to.
The Sigmas of Australia. I say that this goofy air government have been capping not just now, but for a long time. A few of you may remember when they said there'll be no phantom tax under the government.
I lead.
They're kappa holics.
They're also y apoholics. They yap NonStop about how their cost of living measures are changing lives for all Australians. Just put the fries in the bag, little bro. They tell us that they're locked in on improving the housing situation in this country. They must have brain rot from watching too much Kai Sinat and forgot about their plans to ban social media for kids under fourteen.
Sixteenth Minute is a production of fool Zone Media and iHeart Radiops. It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Rostis. Our executive producers are Sophie Lickterman and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is from the brand creator and Pet. Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my Kats, Flee and Casper, and by Pet Rothbert who will outlive us all Bye.