Algospeak
Being in my 30s and no longer hip yet not quite old, I feel as though I'm stuck in a linguistic Grand Prix while super cars full of slang constantly pass me by. My little 2015 Lexicon Sport is gently putting along, but I know one day the brakes will give out and one of these trends will send me headfirst into a wall at 67MPH (sorry) and my ability to keep up with the English language will be over.
I don't think this is a bad thing, to be clear, it just is what it is. Trends come and go and times change. However, in this rat race, one particular subculture of language really sticks out to me: Algospeak.
When I first heard the term "unalive", I'll admit I thought it was very silly. The idea that people would change their speech on TikTok was so cucked, dude. A dismissive and unsophisticated knee-jerk reaction, for sure. I started seeing it more and more on places like Reddit (which don't have as much censorship) and the pervasiveness started to grate on me. Why are people doing this here?! And then... Real life!
I did what any pedant would do when irked and I reflected. Unfortunately for my unsophisticated self my reflection didn't lead me to figuring out why language was becoming cucked. Instead, it led me to understanding.
Algospeak is resistance.
Algospeak is a continuation of a long tradition of censoring the self to promote the message. It isn't just young people being dumb, it's collective nuance to share ideas that systems have deemed a threat by circumventing automated censorship... The same tradition I engaged in when using 1337! How could I have been so ignorant?! Would I rather those ideas be unalived by the large tech companies that have deemed them a threat or out there in the open like leg booty accountant nip nops on their blink in lio? Clearly the latter!
Suffice it to say my apologies to all the Algospeakers out there. The secondhand spoke bothered me for a second there until I realize we're smoking the same ouid.