ICYMI

Is “Algospeak” D@ngerous?

What experts call linguistic self-censorship has not only taken over TikTok, but spread onto other platforms.

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Episode Notes

On today’s episode, Rachelle Hampton is joined by Alexia Fawcett, a PhD candidate in linguistics at UC Santa Barbara and Kendra Calhoun, an assistant professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Calhoun and Fawcett wrote a presentation titled, “They edited out her nip-nops: Linguistic innovation as textual censorship avoidance on TikTok,” which explored both the ways in which and the reason behind why users have developed language like “unalived” and “seggs.” And while these neologisms originate on TikTok, their increasingly-wide adoption is causing concern among observers who notice a perhaps unnecessarily-broad softening of language across social media.

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim.

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About the Show

Join Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim twice a week as we gaze deep into the online abyss—and tell you what’s gazing back.

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Hosts

  • Candice Lim is the co-host of ICYMI, Slate’s podcast about internet culture. She comes to Slate from NPR, where she was an assistant producer at Pop Culture Happy Hour. Prior to that, she was an intern at NPR’s How I Built This, the Hollywood Reporter, WBUR, and the Orange County Register. She graduated from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and grew up in Orange County, California.

  • Rachelle Hampton is a culture writer and reporter at Slate and co-host of ICYMI. Her work has appeared in the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian Magazine, and In These Times. She still hasn't recovered from Tumblr’s demise.