This week, the very ancient roots of a very modern word. Racist, sexist roots. And how this revolting word bubbled up from the dark corners of 4chan and Reddit to, well, this podcast.

Cultures and subcultures have always had their own slang. Their own secret languages, the in-crowd lingo. But the wonderful and terrible thing about the Internet is that secrets are hard to keep. Words and ideas can spread. Can become normal. (Think “on fleek” and “stay woke.”)

But what happens when the ideas are white supremacy and misogyny?

With Jonathon Green, author of Green’s Dictionary of Slang; writer Dana Schwartz of the Observer, who has written about cucked for GQ, and Derek Thompson of the Atlantic, whose book Hit Makers explores how ideas spread online.