If you feel like the internet has suddenly got louder, emptier, faster, and somehow more exhausting all at once, you are not imagining it.
Apparently “slop” is officially the Merriam Webster word of the year. Which is funny in a dark, painfully accurate way. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The recycled captions. The soulless websites. The content that technically exists but does absolutely nothing for us.
This is not a rant about trends or AI or people “doing it wrong.” This is a deeper look at what slop actually is, why it is everywhere, what it is costing us, and also the very real opportunity hiding inside it.
What We Mean When We Say “Slop”
Well sweet ol’ merriam says it’s ‘digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence‘.
Wild that this is so common, we literally are adding in new words like this to our dictionary.
I think Slop is half‑assed, soulless, meaningless AI‑generated content created and shared quickly purely for the sake of putting something out there with absolutely no creative thought or intention behind it.
It is not wrong. It is not offensive. It is not even technically bad.
It’s just… empty.
Slop has no context, no nuance, no real intention behind it, and definitely no care. It is fast, predictable, hollow, algorithm‑friendly content that is deeply forgettable. It might look fine. It might sound fine. But it does not mean anything.
This is the kind of content that exists just to exist.
Slop happens when efficiency becomes more important than meaning.
It shows up as:
- Brands that sound exactly like every other brand
- Websites with beautiful fonts and zero clarity
- Captions that somehow say everything and nothing at the same time
- Content created out of fear of falling behind rather than a genuine desire to connect
Slop is not a skill issue.
It is a discernment issue.
Why This Is Happening (Zoom Way Out)
The good ol’ early internet days were about expression, exploration, and community. It felt like a place you went to participate, to discover, to stumble into ideas and people you might not have found otherwise. A place to post silly little….
The current internet? It’s basically attention harvesting at scale. Less about genuine connection, more about keeping things moving fast, efficient, and constantly producing something new so you’re always visible.
Platforms reward volume. They reward sameness. They reward what has already worked before. Content that can be produced quickly, consumed quickly, and forgotten quickly rises to the top, because it keeps people scrolling and keeps the machine moving.
So people adapt.
They create what feels safe. What’s already been validated. What has proof that it will land.
And to be clear, this is not new. People have been recycling ideas and putting low-effort content into the world since… forever. There have always been people who would rather repeat and recycle what is popular than slow down, think deeply, develop taste, and actually add something of value to the conversation.
What is new is the speed at which it can happen now.
AI didn’t invent slop. It supercharged it.
If slop used to be made one plate at a time, we’re are now using AI to feed the little slop gremlins after midnight. One half-baked idea turns into ten, then a hundred, and suddenly it’s everywhere, all at once, all competing for the same attention.
And don’t get me wrong… AI is incredible.
The ability to generate language, images, systems, and ideas at this scale is genuinely wild and powerful, and I am not interested in pretending otherwise.
But…AI has no taste. No intuition. No lived experience. No values. It cannot tell what matters, what feels true, or what actually needs to be said, it’s just an empty echoing chamber of whatever you feed it.
Without a human bringing clarity, intention, and discernment into the process, AI will happily produce infinite mediocrity at lightning speed.
The Good News (Yes, There Is Some)
Now, I would be a big fat liar if I said there wasn’t any positives to this. There really is:
Slop creates contrast.
When everything starts to sound the same, Realness stands out. Authenticity stands out. HUMANESS stands out. When so much of what we see feels templated, recycled, or strangely hollow, the things that feel personal, specific, and undeniably human become magnetic in a way they never needed to be before.
We are entering an era where resonance matters more than reach.
And this is actually very good news for people who think deeply, care about meaning, speak clearly, and create with intention.
It also means we get to have a more honest conversation about tools like AI.
AI can absolutely be a tool for people with real depth and actual brain circulation happening. Not to think for them, but to help polish what they’ve already spent time thinking about.
What it cannot do is replace thinking. (I mean… you can try… but that is literally what the slop is)
So no, you do not need to post more.
You need to have something to say, and then use these magnificent new tools you have at your disposal to saying it well.
The Bad (And Why Everyone Feels Fried)
Okay, now that I’ve talked through the good, I’m sorry to change the mood and get a little cynical. But the downside is very real.
People are overwhelmed. Attention spans are fried. Trust is harder to earn than ever. Everyone is consuming more and connecting less, not because they don’t care, but because they’re exhausted.
And there is so much of it.
Something genuinely good appears, and almost immediately it gets recycled. Reposted. Reinterpreted. Replicated. Blown up. Watered down. Suddenly it’s everywhere, stripped of the context and originality that made it interesting in the first place.
Because it’s so easy to put content out now, we see something working and feel like we need our own version of it too. So we push it out. Not because we have something new to add, but because it feels risky not to.
When algorithms see something working, they do exactly what they’re designed to do. They replicate it. Amplify it. Push more and more of the same until what once felt interesting or helpful becomes exhausting.
So originality becomes harder to spot. Not because it no longer exists, but because it’s buried under layers of repetition.
Good ideas get scrolled past, not because they’re bad, but because people don’t have the mental or emotional bandwidth left to slow down and really engage. We’re overstimulated, chasing that sweet, sweet dopamine hit, and constantly being asked to pay attention to just one more thing.
People still want connection. They still want realness. They still want to feel something.
They’re just numb from overexposure.
The Ugly (The Societal Cost)
This is where it gets uncomfortable.
There is so much pressure to constantly be producing that people don’t really take the time to think things through anymore. And with how easy it is to access information and generate answers, we’ve slowly started outsourcing our thinking.
Maybe it’s decision fatigue. Maybe it’s comfort. Maybe it’s convenience. Maybe it’s that we’re so used to frictionless solutions that we’ve forgotten how to sit in uncertainty, discomfort, or not immediately knowing what we think.
But either way, it’s starting to get dangerous.
Because we’re exercising our critical thinking less and less.
And identity is formed in that friction.
Taste develops over time when we actually think for ourselves, when we decide what resonates and what doesn’t, when we form opinions instead of borrowing them. Originality requires sitting in the awkward in-between, resisting the urge to resolve a thought too quickly, and allowing ideas to mature instead of rushing them to completion.
Slop culture rewards the opposite.
This is where the Photoshop metaphor really breaks open.
What used to be a tool for subtle enhancement — covering a blemish, softening a dark circle, maybe compensating for the fact that the camera adds ten pounds — has quietly shifted into full AI-generated faces, bodies, videos, and moments that don’t even exist.
We didn’t just start enhancing reality. We started replacing it.
And you can feel the same thing happening with ideas.
Instead of helping refine a thought, AI often fully generates it. Instead of sharpening the edges, it smooths everything out. The result looks polished, complete, and technically impressive, but it’s hollow. Detached from the person who supposedly created it.
That’s the difference between enhancement and replacement.
And when replacement becomes the norm, connection suffers. Because real connection requires presence, slowness, and vulnerability. Slop is fast, polished, and emotionally empty.
So people end up feeling seen, but not known. Connected, but lonely.
The Line Between Using AI and Creating Slop
This is where nuance actually matters.
AI isn’t the villain. It’s not the savior either. It’s a tool. And like any tool, the outcome depends entirely on who’s holding it and how they’re using it.
Used well, it doesn’t replace thinking. It supports it. It helps shape thoughts that already exist, gives structure to ideas that are still forming, and speeds up the part of the process that usually stalls people out.
Used poorly, it skips the thinking altogether.
Did I use AI to help write this? Hell yes I did.
But I did not say, “Chat, write me a blog about slop.” I saw something that I thought was interesting. I sat with it. I dumped my thoughts out in all their half-formed, messy, human glory. Then I used AI the way I think it works best: as a thinking partner. I asked it to help me organize my ideas, find a clearer flow, and shape the points I already cared about.
And then I went back through and fine-tuned it. I massaged it, if you will. I adjusted the pacing, the tone, the language. I challenged chat, I challenged myself, he cried, I cried, it was a whole ordeal but we kept pushing through until it actually sounded like me and said what I wanted it to.
And honestly? Thank god. Because if I was trying to write this all on my own, it would have taken me hourrrrsssss to actually write and polish it up to a point that I felt proud of publishing it to the world. And being even more honest? I definitely don’t have the patience or attention span for that haha, so this never would have seen the light of day.
AI should help you say what you already believe more clearly. It should not tell you what to believe.
Slop happens when people jump straight to output without doing the inner work first.
So How Do We Actually Connect With People Now?
Not by being louder. Not by posting more. Not by polishing everything within an inch of its life.
We connect by being more human.
Connection right now doesn’t come from scale or perfection or perfectly packaged thoughts. It comes from specificity. From fewer words that actually carry weight. From letting people see how you think, not just handing them a neat little conclusion with all the mess edited out.
It comes from lived experience. From saying, this is what I’ve noticed, or this is what I’m still figuring out, instead of speaking in abstractions.
People don’t really trust perfection anymore. It doesn’t feel real.
They trust process. Reflection. Nuance. Humanity.
Your edge isn’t speed. It’s context. It’s perspective. It’s the fact that no one else has lived your life or thought your thoughts in the exact same way.
It kind of feels like we’re standing at a fork in the road.
One direction leads to more noise, more sameness, more slop.
The other leads to slower, more intentional creation. Clearer communication. Deeper connection.
And the good news is, you don’t have to opt out of the internet to choose the second path.
You just need taste. Discernment. And the willingness to slow down long enough to actually mean what you’re saying.
In a world full of slop, realness is the quiet rebellion.
And if you’re still here, hi. Truly. Thanks for reading all the way to the end. That alone tells me something about you.
Now do me a favor. Take one of your half-baked ideas. Don’t immediately throw it into the machine. Sit with it. Let it cook a little longer than feels comfortable. Then put something into the world that you’re genuinely proud of.
And if you’re still here, hehe helloooo thanks for reading to the end 🙂 Love you, appreciate you 🙂 Now go out into the world and take one of your half-baked ideas, throw that baby in the burner and produce something you’re proud of
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