Misty Harris, “New Words Are the New Cool Thanks to Social Media” (Postmedia News, Dec. 12, 2011)
Just as in the offline world, Zimmer says, fluency with such buzzy terms signals that a person is in-the-know, and indeed part of the cultural conversation. The key difference on social media is the speed at which others can catch on and join in, ultimately investing in a neologism’s stickiness.
“It’s playing an increasingly big role in language, having an effect both on the spread of new words and the ability to observe them,” says Zimmer. “But it’s also a little dangerous because we can get so caught up in what’s happening on social media that we think it’s representative of the entire world.”
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