How Trump, Memes, and Algorithms Transformed The Way We Speak | Crooked Media
Check out the CROOKED CON lineup now at crookedcon.com Check out the CROOKED CON lineup now at crookedcon.com
September 25, 2025
Offline with Jon Favreau
How Trump, Memes, and Algorithms Transformed The Way We Speak

In This Episode

Skibidi rizz Labubu Dubai matcha. The internet—and its algorithms—have reshaped the words we use and the way we speak—but are those changes also affecting our politics? Adam Aleksic, known online as Etymology Nerd, joins Offline to talk to Jon about his new book “Algospeak” in which he makes sense of our new, internet-optimized linguistic landscape. Jon and Adam discuss how that landscape is changing our politics, how Donald Trump’s unusual syntax is designed to capture attention in it, and why brainrot has become the dominant aesthetic of the generations most native to the internet—Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.