What The Sigma Is Algospeak?

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Science, Life Sciences, Wnyc, Natural Sciences, Friday

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You might think sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler is chopped, but “Algospeak” author Adam Aleksic says we should let Gen Alpha cook.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey folks, Ira here with a quick reminder that as this year ticked slowly away, this is your last chance to make a tax deductible donation for 2025.
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0:50.3	And thanks.
0:54.3	Hey, I'm Flor Licksman and you're listening to Science Friday.
0:58.3	Up next, on my skibbity, we have a linguistic Rizzler here to tell us why my diction is giving Ohio.
1:04.4	If that's brain rot to you, my next guest argues it's actually the future of language.
1:09.3	Today we're talking about alggoSpeak, how algorithms
1:12.2	are shaping the way that we write and talk and think with Adam Alexic. He's a TikToker, a language
1:19.6	nerd, and the author of AlgoSpeak, how social media is transforming the future of language. And he's
1:25.9	based in New York. Adam, welcome to Science Friday.
1:29.1	Hi, Flora. You might be the first person to ever call me a linguistic Rizzler.
1:33.2	I'm going to take that as a compliment. But you can tell me why it's actually a dis. Did I use it
1:38.7	correctly? I guess younger people wouldn't quite say that because we're already here. It's leading into cringe humor,
1:46.4	I suppose. One second into this interview. Okay, tell me how would how would the young kids? How would
1:51.3	the young folks use it? Well, it's like there's always a layer of irony, right? So, the Rizzler is like a
1:56.6	character on TikTok and it's funny because everybody knows that the word Riz, which started trending in 2023, it's now sort of meta-ironically poking fun at itself as a word.
2:06.1	Well, meta-ironically is exactly how I mentioned. How do you define Algo-Speak?
	...

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