Chapter II: The Neural Alchemy of Slang: How Brains and Bytes Reshape Language

Does gen-z slang lead to brain-rot? Is brain-rot a medical verdict? Who drives language change? How can our brains adapt to the information overload in this digital age?
Does gen-z slang, and internet language in general, indicate the decay of language as we know it? Can we really find some pros to slang? What does Neuroscience say?

A warm welcome to you, readers of the Elixir. Today we shall carry on our journey which aims to understand what does the language we use online reveal about who we are becoming as a species.

We previously agreed to divide this journey into three chapters (much like Dante’s Divine Comedy) to allow more access and comprehension, due to the complex and extensive profoundness of the subject at hand.

In the first chapter, we descended into the abyss of language and discovered how online language and social media communication are being used as an armor and a mirror, a dual role, which gives birth to Absurdism and death to Sincerity.

In this chapter, we are crossing the threshold into the scientist’s lab, in order to scientifically dissect (a bold word) the human brain and discover how it is affected by online language, particularly gen-z slang.
To achieve this humble scientific endeavor, we will be guided by the lantern of some insights from Neuroscience and Neurolinguistics.

Let us now transmute our consciousness from the abyss of Absurdity into the realm of cognition, where the pulse of slang will reveal not decay, but evolution and design.

I. The Debate Over The Main Driver of Language Change

The dominant position of language change in the previous century was the idea that children were the main architects of linguistic evolution.
The argument provided by scholars was represented by the fact that children are endlessly creative, flexible, and unspoiled by convention or social make-up.

However, a recent research published at the Max Planck Institute challenges this position. It argues that adolescents and adults are the real protagonists of the language development game.
Those socially-driven and networked beings reshape and transform language. According to this new perspective, language evolution occurs not at the roots of innocence, but through those who already wrestle with meaning, identity, and belonging.

Understanding this shift in perspective reframes the modern linguistic scenery, especially slang, as a phenomenon born not from childhood novelty, but from mature social and cognitive negotiation.
It also begs for a more pressing question: If this is the true case of language evolution, how does this process look today, when our communication is mostly mediated through screens?

II. Slang, The Pulse of Language Change

From neurological and cognitive perspective, slang does not represent language decay. It’s not a sign of some linguistic degradation or rot. It’s language’s fastest mutation.
In other words, slang is the part of language that pulses fastest when the world changes. It acts as a neural shortcut which turns complex emotion and awareness into efficient signal.

This linguistic neural shortcut mirrors how the brain prunes redundant pathways. On the other hand, it strengthen pathways that transmit meaning with speed and belonging by compressing shared experience into a code understood by those attuned to its rhythm.

Gen-Z words like vibe, POV, GOAT, rizz, sus, wallahi, lol, ate, cooked, cap/no cap, fr, bro, sigma, W (win)/L (loss), aura, chat, based, mid, delulu … can carry layers and layers of meaning and worlds of social nuance.
They are tiny linguistic zip files stored in simple 1-3 syllables, shaped by context, tone, and shared history.

For deeper and more scientific understanding of modern slang as a tool for linguistic evolution, check:
Slangvolution: A Causal Analysis of Semantic Change and Frequency Dynamics in Slang (Keidar, Opedal, Jin & Sachan, 2022).
The Social Dynamics of Language Change in Online Networks (Goel, Soni, Goyal, Paparrizos, Wallach, Diaz & Eisenstein, 2016)

However, if we truly want to understand slang, we must realize it is not an internet invention, nor that Gen-Z creatively originated it. We must look backward across centuries and civilizations to discover the evolutionary direction of slang.

III. The Evolutionary Thread of Slang

From Arabic Zajal poetry to Nigerian Pidgin, from Chinese street talk to Latin American Lunfardo, slang has always been humanity’s way of testing the boundaries of expression.

Across cultures, informal speech has been the language of resistance and reinvention. In every empire and colony, marketplace and alleyway, people forged words to say what official tongues could not.

The medieval Muwashshah poets blended classical and colloquial Arabic just as today’s youth blend emojis with text; linguistic rebellion disguised as play. African griots, Caribbean MCs, and urban storytellers from São Paulo to Seoul all bend words to rhythm and irony, encoding survival and pride.

This global continuity shows that linguistic change is not new, only its speed is. The same neural creativity that once echoed in marketplaces now flickers through DMs and memes.

IV. The Neurolinguistics of Innovation

We keep describing slang as a neurological shortcut or play, but what do we exactly mean by that?
Let me break it simply: Our brains love newness. Who could have guessed?
The human brain is wired to seek out novelty because it’s literally junkie (kidding).
The reason is that novelty activates the brain’s reward circuits, particularly dopamine pathways.
How does this manifest? When you solve a riddle, learn something new, hear a melody which resonates to you, or grasp or create new words.

What happens? your brain releases dopamine to give you a sense of satisfaction, motivation, and reward. Just as the brain delights in solving puzzles and learning something new, novel, or “trendy”, it delights in decoding a slang word or a meme.

For a deep dive, albeit accessible to non-specialists, into how novelty drives learning and reward in the brain, the same mechanisms at play when we grasp or invent new words, check Benedict Carey’s How We Learn, Lieberman & Long’s The Molecule of More, and Dean Burnett’s The Idiot Brain.

Thus, linguistic innovation and evolution through slang is not only cultural but biological. We can call it “neural alchemy”, as language transforms and reshapes us, just as we transform and reshape it.
However, as we dig deeper, we notice that neural pathways meet screens, awareness meets notifications, and language evolves and mutates even more.

The Golden Drop

In the second part, we will be exploring the manifestations of this new mutation of language. We will also rediscover the term “brain-rot” from a new perspective. Furthermore, we will dissect how slang is not only a tool of linguistic evolution, but a crucial survival tool in this digital age. And finally, we will take glimpse at the future of this linguistic alchemy. Based not on magic, but optimistic prediction that is backed by present evidence.
Until we meet then,
Kindly Remember: Words create, heal, and transform.