Algospeak by Adam Aleksic | Grizzly Gazette Book Club
Padding. That is what I would describe much of this book. I felt like there was so much of the book where I thought, "Jesus Herman Christ, get to the fucking point".
It's gonna be hard for me to say anything that either Kami or Suliman haven't already said. There just isn't really much to say about the book, I almost didn't finish it before I had to return it to the library. I just kinda got bored of feeling like each chapter was just the same formula. It's like if you took that formulaic plot of a Mandalorian episode, but give it the same disjointedness like how each episode of SpongeBob is completely inconsequential to the ones surrounding it.
Some parts of the book I kept thinking, "yeah no shit" as he states the obvious of how algorithms shape the way we speak due to censorship.
The books strength is in how it delves into etymology of various internet slang, after all that's kinda Aleksic's background. However, the rest of the book seems to have this "wide but shallow" breadth when delving into any given topic. Each chapter just felt disjointed and didn't really follow a coherent timeline chock full of anecdotes.
I feel like this book may have been better suited to be read 10 years from now by some gen alpha teenager who didn't grow up with vine. I felt bored because he would go into a lot of etymology that basically was like "yeah, this slang came from this vine" or whatever. Seriously, I don't need 3 pages discussing the etymology of "Yeet".
It was just overall hard to get through, not because it was a challenging read, far from it, but because of just how mundane it was to read. I got through it by taking it on my trips to the toilet, really helped prevent me from sitting on the porcelain throne for too long.
I feel like the main point this book tries to make would have been better off as a 15-minute YouTube video rather than a 200 page book. There isn't really much else to say about the book because the book itself didn't really say much.
Overall score, 5/10. Average, if not painfully so. You're better off getting it on audiobook and listening to it casually than dedicating time/space to read it. It doesn't really feel like a book that warrants its existence, similar to my thoughts on books like "The Let Them Theory". A book that would have been better suited for a different medium.
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