Neologismster?

Isaac Asimov wrote a story entitled "Jokester," in which he postulated that every joke ever made had been implanted in our culture by alien scientists to test our reactions. The discovery of this fact in the story, naturally, heisenberged the experiment and all the jokes were removed, with the result that, as one character remarked, no-one on earth would ever laugh again. Unfortunately, with all respect to the Good Doctor, the premise is faulty, since a moment's thought will reveal that most if not all jokes arise from and depend on a thorough understanding of what it means to be human (though, given the upsurge in alleged "comedy" programmes such as The Office, he might have been on to something after all; we do seem to have lost the knack somehow).

The things that puzzle me, on the other hand, that might well have been implanted by someone or something, are the new words or usages that seem to pop out of nowhere. I've remarked before on the inexplicable use of "pants" as a pejorative adjective. And I remember well the Countess remarking on the first time she ever encountered the single word "Bless" used as an expression of affectionate and slightly condescending sympathy, and how scant days later I couldn't open a magazine or take part in a conversation without coming up against it. These neologisms do not seem to spring from any tribal argot, as "hip" (or "hep") and "square," say, sprang from the beatnik movement. They just appear, and seem to spread instantaneously by some kind of osmosis.

Are we the subject of some bizarre experiment by linguistically inclined beings from a higher dimension?