I’ll typically start formulating ideas around 7 a.m. Thanks to a steady stream of information from my doctoral studies, my first instinct is to dig through the past 24 hours of reading to check for a properly sized diamond—size actually mattering in this case, since anything more than four sentences is pushing it.
If nothing comes to mind, I’ll check a Word file titled “thoughts” that currently extends to approximately 98 pages. I’ll pray for discernment as my eyes glide downward. Sometimes an aphorism is just right. Other times I’ll shut the file and just stare at the ceiling and sound out words in my head until something feels sticky, interesting, insightful, or, what invariably performs best: funny.
Once something settles in, I type it out. There’s a specific rhythm and cadence that works. Bold-faced font for what’s important. Use an em dash and colon wherever possible. John-Mark-Comer-space your sentences. But the hardest part—the challenge to the moral backbone—is the tension between doing what works and what’s earnest and meaningful. Being online brings the dedicated poster, predictably, into that weird space between selling one’s own soul for exposure and offering sincere thoughts that resonate.
I hit Send and then delete the Substack app so I can get back into undistracted flow.
This is a morning in the life of a part-time content creator. I prefer the term writer, but even for a writing-driven platform like Substack, writers have to become, effectively, content creators to get in front of readers. I’m in the content grind with plenty of other writers, artists, and creatives, chipping away at the void, submitting to the yoke of platform-building in attempts to get the industry to take our work seriously.
But after keeping this habit for a while, I noticed something strange: The more data I gathered from analyzing what kinds of posts “worked,” the more the cadence, style, and rhythm of my short online writing seeped into everything else I did—my lectures, sermons, and emails.
Even more troubling, social media algorithms were also shaping what I wanted to say. Beyond just influencing little quirks of formatting and grammar, my desire to get ahead of the algorithm was influencing my other desires, and, consequently, my vision of the good life.
I didn’t realize how common this was until academic linguist Adam Aleksic (better known as Etymology Nerd) provided an overview in his book Algospeak.
“Algospeak” is essentially how social media algorithms transform our communication. Sometimes this looks like self-censoring content so that it doesn’t get “shadowbanned” (when a post gets hidden because the algorithm detects inappropriate or controversial language). Kill becomes unalive, for example.
Beyond euphemisms, though, algospeak is also about prioritizing trendy keywords. Starting a TikTok video with the phrase No because or I’m sat for this has more potential for virality because the algorithm knows those phrases attract more engagement.
This is not just slang for slang’s sake; users learn to speak in code to give their content the chance to perform well. Algorithms implicitly teach us which words capture or repel attention. And as anyone who spends time around young people knows, algospeak has bled offline.
I asked my friend Jenna Mindel how algospeak influences her own work. Not only does she have an audience on Substack, Instagram, and TikTok, but she’s also a content specialist who oversees pop-culture and teen slang for Axis. “I keep the algorithmic model in the back of my head as I make content,” she told me.
Having majored in journalism, she said, “it’s not all that different from how a journalist approaches an article.” She starts with a hook to keep a viewer interested, then does her best to make sure the rest of the video creates value and payoff.
Surprisingly, Mindel also said that starting a video with popular slang phrases doesn’t really cross her mind as “inauthentic”—as if it’s a sly trick to boost engagement. As a 24-year-old woman, those terms are so in the water that it just feels like a natural way to talk. (And, of course, these phrases often originate within various real-world communities before later bleeding into the broader culture through social media. But without the internet, I fear, many of us wouldn’t be jokingly punctuating sentences with “I fear.”)
Perhaps some Not Very Online readers are thinking, Okay, but this isn’t really relevant for me. Yet, Aleksic emphasizes, “whether you’re on social media or not, you’re still in a café or a bar, and you hear a Sabrina Carpenter song that got popular because of [social media] algorithms. The language that you end up adopting, or that your kids end up adopting, is still going to be coming from [an online platform’s] algorithm, whether you like it or not. You can’t just bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Culture is now downstream from algospeak.
Is this an issue? Or is it just natural? After all, younger generations have always dreamed up new ways of speaking to differentiate themselves from adults.
But I think the urge to use algospeak creates a big problem, particularly for the church. As I’ve seen in my personal life, algospeak reinforces and capitalizes on our desire for attention and status. Perhaps if I change the way I write or post, people will notice me? Perhaps I will become an established sigma via mogging my writing competitors?
Morphing our own patterns of communication to fit some ever-changing algorithm turns us into people who speak the same language, want the same things, and measure ourselves by the same metrics. Even if an artfully crafted 7 a.m. post pops off on the Substack algorithm, I can’t help but think: Are these aspirations going to lead me deeper into a flourishing life?
Anyone who gets sucked into algorithms—myself very much included—is confronted with this reality sooner or later: Algorithms can’t make us happy. They can’t provide a satisfaction that lasts any longer than a scroll through our notifications.
Thankfully, Jesus’ vision of the good life didn’t include seeking popularity. While other ancient thinkers like Aristotle taught that honor was the highest of the worldly goods, the Gospels depict worldly honor as something corrosive. Jesus’ abundant life involved becoming so unconcerned about praise from others that we only crave reward from God (Matt. 6:1–18). He says when you pray, don’t make a show of it; instead, pray to your Father in secret and he will reward you (vv. 5–6).
When we think “reward,” we often think material or social gain—as if God might reward us by magically granting us the corner office or influencing our crushes to requite our unrequited affections. But New Testament scholar Frederick Dale Bruner notes that this “reward” is relational. He even argues that we should think of it as meaning “impressed.” That’s shocking to think about, that we can impress a God who has parted seas and raised the dead.
But what father isn’t impressed with his child’s magic tricks or piano recitals? Maybe God delights in our attempts to do things that delight him and him alone—not seeking praise from the world—simply by virtue of our childish desire to please him (Matt. 18:3).
And just like a child seeking a father’s approval, it’s good and healthy for us to want God’s.
Other worldviews like Stoicism argue for suppressing our desire for attention. Christianity, by contrast, teaches that human beings are made in God’s image, and part of that design involves our desire to feel noticed and loved. Jesus asks us to redirect our desire for recognition away from people who can never satisfy and toward the only one who can fulfill us with his love.
Remembering this can be the best medicine against creating content for the sole purpose of boosting exposure, writing for the sake of clickbait, or catering our preaching toward viral sound bite clips. We are called to create for the only one whose attention really satisfies.
This isn’t to suggest we can’t have redemptive goals in making content. Mindel, like myself, is cautiously optimistic. “It’s hard to stay authentic on social media,” she said. “I think it’s fair to say it’s impossible to do it perfectly. But you can still be yourself while sharing your message in the particular shape that a platform asks you to conform to.”
There are healthy ways to be online. We have to stay vigilant—taking days off and reminding ourselves why we’re really doing what we’re doing.
Most mornings I still delete the app. And also most mornings I still redownload it sooner than I’d like to admit to check the numbers. But I’m trying to become more interested in a different audience than the one the algorithm can give me. We have a God who is genuinely looking forward to whatever clumsy, half-formed prayer or journal entry we bring him. And aspiring toward that will never let us down. It’s a better reward than anything an algorithm can offer.
Griffin Gooch is a writer, speaker, and professor currently working on his doctorate at the University of Aberdeen. He writes most frequently on Substack.
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