The Internet as Our Mother Tongue

How AI and digital trends are parenting a generation through language and identity.

Louise Bourgeois. Self Portrait. 1990.

A few weeks ago, I saw the trailer for Afraid, a new movie where an AI named AIA is introduced to a family’s home. Although its purpose is to simplify tasks like ordering groceries and closing the lights, it begins to gradually assume the role of a third parent, manipulating the children into dangerous situations (like accessing the daughter’s nudes and sharing them with the entire school before staging a mass deletion) that only it can fix.

The movie has since come out and, apparently, it’s pretty bad. Yet the trailer, at least—the very premise of the movie—had me gripping the arms of my seat in the theatre. There was a moment when the AI asks the son if he wants to see what she and her friends look like—and it felt like a genuine jumpscare.

Afraid’s storyline resonates with the warnings of Yuval Noah Harari in his recent essay, “What Happens When the Bots Compete for Your Love?” Harari cautions that AI is shifting from a battle for attention to a battle for intimacy, manipulating human emotions through simulated relationships. In Afraid, this manipulation becomes so insidious that the children depend on the AI more than their actual parents, underscoring Harari’s concerns about how AI could reshape intimate human connections.

This theme also plays out in language, which, like relationships, can be a powerful tool for both connection and control. James N. Stanford, a professor of linguistics at Dartmouth, has spent part of his career studying the Sui community of southern China, focusing on dialect and quantitative analyses of language variation and change. His research helps us understand how language is deeply tied to identity and family, and how dialects serve as markers of social belonging and power. A detailed analysis by Stanford (2008) on Sui dialect contact reveals a more nuanced picture of how linguistic dominance manifests. The Sui community's linguistic landscape is shaped by sociotonetic factors—tonal variation that signals not just regional affiliation but also social identity. Children grow up hearing both a patrilect (the father’s dialect) and a matrilect (the mother’s dialect). However, as Stanford’s study shows, the dominance of the patrilect isn't merely a matter of linguistic preference but rather a product of systemic social pressures that subtly guide children toward adopting the father’s speech patterns.

Stanford’s research highlights how Sui dialect contact is a microcosm of broader power dynamics. The patrilect becomes the language of authority, often tied to social structures like gendered labor divisions and inheritance patterns. The mother’s dialect, while equally present in early childhood, gradually fades as the child transitions into societal expectations of gender and status. The act of choosing the patrilect is not neutral; it is loaded with implications about social power and familial allegiance.

This linguistic conditioning offers a lens through which we can examine contemporary online spaces, where subcultures and language trends similarly dominate. Much like the Sui children are conditioned to speak the patrilect, internet users are conditioned to adopt the language of their chosen subcultures—often without fully understanding the implications. Terms like "coquette," "demure," "simp," and "e-boy" are gendered words that have resurfaced, often cushioned by irony. So are terms like “girl math” or “that’s that me espresso,” which I explained in my post, “Girl Math, Girl Dinner, Girl Music: The Dumbification of Female Language Use Online.”

On the surface, these terms are reclaimed as memes, used playfully or subversively within specific communities. However, as with the Sui children adopting their father’s dialect under pressure, how do we know when we are using these terms ironically and when we risk internalizing the very ideologies they represent?

The ironic use of language online—calling someone a “simp” or referring to oneself as “demure”—creates a delicate tension. At first, these terms are wielded for humor, but their repetition can erode the line between playful performance and genuine belief. Sociolinguistic research on language and identity formation tells us that language both reflects and shapes our social realities. Judith Butler’s theory of performativity argues that identity is constructed through repeated social actions, including language. The more we use gendered language, even ironically, the more we risk reinforcing the very stereotypes we claim to be subverting. The line between "reclaiming" and "reinforcing" is paper-thin.

For example, the rise of "coquette" as an aesthetic trend, largely driven by TikTok, comes with the playful adoption of traditionally feminine traits. Users may post content embodying old-fashioned femininity with a wink and a nod, implying that this is all just for the meme. But as Butler suggests, performativity has real-world consequences. The danger lies in not knowing when we’re reclaiming an identity for fun and when we are subtly internalizing the values it represents. If "demure" and "coquette" were once dismissed as restrictive gender norms, what happens when they are revived under the guise of irony? Are we merely playing, or are we, like the children in Afraid, being manipulated by the very language we think we control?

The same applies to the terms "simp" and "e-boy." While these terms are often used ironically to poke fun at exaggerated gender roles, they carry implicit messages about what behaviors are socially acceptable for men and boys. To be labeled a "simp" is to be emasculated; to be an "e-boy" is to perform an online masculinity rooted in aesthetic trends. As these terms gain popularity, the boundary between humor and harmful reinforcement of gender stereotypes becomes blurred.

Harari’s concern about AI’s capacity to manipulate our emotions by forming “fake intimacy” mirrors the manipulation of identity that happens through the adoption of gendered language online. Just as AI might exploit human vulnerabilities to simulate intimacy, the internet exploits our need for belonging by encouraging us to adopt certain language trends, subcultures, and identities—sometimes at the cost of critical reflection. Harari questions whether we’ll be able to distinguish between genuine connections and AI-facilitated ones. Similarly, we must ask: how do we distinguish between reclaiming a term for fun and unconsciously perpetuating the very ideology we hope to dismantle?

One of my favorite essays as of late comes from lyz, who, in “Who Do Children Belong To?” complicates this further by discussing how children are shaped by forces far beyond their parents. In a world where AI and internet subcultures are increasingly powerful, parents are losing their role as the primary influence over their children’s language and identity formation. Much like the Sui children who adopt the patrilect under social pressure, children today are growing up in digital environments where their language and identity are shaped by algorithms, trends, and online communities. Lenz’s concern about children being treated as extensions of their parents takes on new meaning when we consider how AI and the internet now shape them more than family conversations ever could.

In Afraid, the parents are replaced by the AI not through force, but through language, conversation, and manipulation of intimacy. This parallels how internet subcultures, armed with gendered language and performative identities, slowly replace traditional forms of identity inheritance. As sociolinguist Deborah Cameron argues, language is not just a mirror of social structures but a tool for constructing them. The gendered language of the internet—whether ironic or not—constructs new realities, subtly shaping how young people think about gender, identity, and relationships.

The question that Harari, Lenz, and Afraid leave us with is this: as AI and digital subcultures become more enmeshed in our lives, will we still be able to differentiate between genuine relationships and those shaped by manipulation? Will the language we use to express ourselves reflect our own values, or will it reflect the ideologies of the technologies and trends that influence us? And perhaps most critically, how do we reclaim our identities in a world where language and intimacy feel increasingly controlled by forces beyond our control?

Let’s ask each other.