Do we think that this rapid evolution/mutation of the meaning of words (what some might call concept creep) is just what happens when a concept is introduced to millions of people around the same time?
Broderick gives the game away by saying that "Brat Summer" is *not* slop. That meme was the most insincere, inorganic and ubiquitous BS of the year - if anything in pop culture is slop, it's Brat Summer.
I think there’s also a LARP element here too where the cultural writer tried to disguise “I’m against corporate therefore I’m on the side of mass!” - I’m sorry this disguise is a slop by their definition lol
I agree with all of this, but I think it overlooks one particularly interesting dimension, which Jia Tolentino touches on it in her excellent recent essay, “My Brain Finally Broke.” Content now exists in unprecedented volume and has been flattened into a single, undifferentiated stream: movies, TV, books, podcasts, articles, YouTube videos, TikToks—they are all just "content" now that flits by in a brief moment and out back again into the ether. As this content blends with true slop, and as we consume it both passively in spare moments and actively during our free time, it seems to create a new kind of unease.
I’ve seen a new genre of essays on Substack touching this exact thing. I think of it as a kind of experiential “flattening” (as if we placed a layer of gorilla glass on top of everything). It’s why I’m so allergic to the word “content”.
I don't think this piece really engages with the frustration people have towards the type of content that is being churned out constantly. I agree that it's somewhat of a vague term that just opens up debate, but if we didn't say "slop" we would just say "foul" or something. It's just a word that works because it's evocative.
When you talk about Deadpool and Wolverine, you say it's called "slop" because it doesn't "appeal to Brooklyn hipsters." I would say it's "slop" because it's clearly manufactured, lacks the irreverence and identity of the first two, and pats itself on the back for pumping out a bunch of nostalgia cameo bait.
There's no reason a movie can't appeal to the masses and also not be good. Oppenheimer grossed nearly a billion dollars. (Also listing things that weren't called slop in the past is not an argument for why it can't be slop now.)
I always thought slop was supposed to be targeted at outrage-bait political news. You aren't having an intellectual discussion when you're just reacting. Applying it to pop culture misses the point: the discussion of pop culture is frequently outrage-bait, empty calorie nonsense as well. So maybe it's just another word that loses all meaning the more it's used.
I think there's a conflation of the words "slop" and "enshittified". Enshittification is more about the intention degradation of quality or utility in favor of optimizing profits. I'd argue that there's some level of enshittification happening at Chipotle, in the movie industry, and in Taylor Swift's marketing of her brand. I don't necessarily think her music has gotten worse, but the experience of listening to her music has declined in quality because of her desire to maximize profits.
Tentpole movies always used to exist (as you mention), but the term tentpole literally meant that these blockbusters held up the "tent" for the whole studio, which protected many mid-budget, niche, or risky movies. Arguably, the tentpole no longer exists in the same way and that is part of the enshittification of movies, as there are very few niche or mid-budget or non-IP movies coming out of these studios anymore. Essentially, Deadpool was intended to hold up the tent so that Dune 2 and other similar IP-based movies with slightly more niche and higher brow source material could exist.
"slop" is basically newspeak. A single word that can dismiss anything, but more ambiguously than "bad". I can argue that Sweetgreen isn't bad, but how do I argue that it's not "slop"
“By accident,” not “on accident.” A whole (excellent, btw) column on acceptable use of language only to end with that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard phrase.
Grateful for the definitions. Imprecise language makes productive conversation impossible.
When "slop" expands from "AI-generated Facebook nonsense that fools your uncle" to "anything culturally overexposed," we lose a useful diagnostic term and gain only cultural posturing..
What I found particularly insightful is the connection to Orwell's observation about insincerity. The real "slop" here isn't Taylor Swift, it's the lazy thinking that uses "slop" as a substitute for actual cultural criticism. As Marvin Minsky once noted, "The problem is not that machines think too little, but that people think too little about what thinking means."
I've been exploring these questions in my newsletter *A Short Distance Ahead*, where I trace how we got from Turing's original question: ‘Can machines think?’ about machine intelligence to our current moment of linguistic confusion. Each week, I look at a year in AI history to understand how we arrived at today's debates about authenticity, intelligence, and what deserves our attention.
It’s increasingly apparent, with 1990s era media monopoly power disintegrating further and further and the “cool” journalists it once employed increasingly finding themselves with less and less reach, that the Cultural Gatekeepers are having to try harder and harder to put the gates and fences back up…but are clearly failing.
"Slop" is the just newest way that people say the things that they dislike is Objectively Bad.
I don't mean to brag, but I knew this the second that word started to enter the mainstream. Like with "Enshittification"
Do we think that this rapid evolution/mutation of the meaning of words (what some might call concept creep) is just what happens when a concept is introduced to millions of people around the same time?
Broderick gives the game away by saying that "Brat Summer" is *not* slop. That meme was the most insincere, inorganic and ubiquitous BS of the year - if anything in pop culture is slop, it's Brat Summer.
Spot on!
I think there’s also a LARP element here too where the cultural writer tried to disguise “I’m against corporate therefore I’m on the side of mass!” - I’m sorry this disguise is a slop by their definition lol
At this point, complaining about slop has become slop by any definition wide enough to encompass all the things people call slop.
But complaining about people complaining about slop—high art!
I agree with all of this, but I think it overlooks one particularly interesting dimension, which Jia Tolentino touches on it in her excellent recent essay, “My Brain Finally Broke.” Content now exists in unprecedented volume and has been flattened into a single, undifferentiated stream: movies, TV, books, podcasts, articles, YouTube videos, TikToks—they are all just "content" now that flits by in a brief moment and out back again into the ether. As this content blends with true slop, and as we consume it both passively in spare moments and actively during our free time, it seems to create a new kind of unease.
I’ve seen a new genre of essays on Substack touching this exact thing. I think of it as a kind of experiential “flattening” (as if we placed a layer of gorilla glass on top of everything). It’s why I’m so allergic to the word “content”.
I don't think this piece really engages with the frustration people have towards the type of content that is being churned out constantly. I agree that it's somewhat of a vague term that just opens up debate, but if we didn't say "slop" we would just say "foul" or something. It's just a word that works because it's evocative.
When you talk about Deadpool and Wolverine, you say it's called "slop" because it doesn't "appeal to Brooklyn hipsters." I would say it's "slop" because it's clearly manufactured, lacks the irreverence and identity of the first two, and pats itself on the back for pumping out a bunch of nostalgia cameo bait.
There's no reason a movie can't appeal to the masses and also not be good. Oppenheimer grossed nearly a billion dollars. (Also listing things that weren't called slop in the past is not an argument for why it can't be slop now.)
It’s really virtue signaling all the way down with some of these culture writers!
I always thought slop was supposed to be targeted at outrage-bait political news. You aren't having an intellectual discussion when you're just reacting. Applying it to pop culture misses the point: the discussion of pop culture is frequently outrage-bait, empty calorie nonsense as well. So maybe it's just another word that loses all meaning the more it's used.
McDonald's hate? In my anti-slop article?? Repent!
I think there's a conflation of the words "slop" and "enshittified". Enshittification is more about the intention degradation of quality or utility in favor of optimizing profits. I'd argue that there's some level of enshittification happening at Chipotle, in the movie industry, and in Taylor Swift's marketing of her brand. I don't necessarily think her music has gotten worse, but the experience of listening to her music has declined in quality because of her desire to maximize profits.
Tentpole movies always used to exist (as you mention), but the term tentpole literally meant that these blockbusters held up the "tent" for the whole studio, which protected many mid-budget, niche, or risky movies. Arguably, the tentpole no longer exists in the same way and that is part of the enshittification of movies, as there are very few niche or mid-budget or non-IP movies coming out of these studios anymore. Essentially, Deadpool was intended to hold up the tent so that Dune 2 and other similar IP-based movies with slightly more niche and higher brow source material could exist.
"slop" is basically newspeak. A single word that can dismiss anything, but more ambiguously than "bad". I can argue that Sweetgreen isn't bad, but how do I argue that it's not "slop"
“By accident,” not “on accident.” A whole (excellent, btw) column on acceptable use of language only to end with that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard phrase.
Grateful for the definitions. Imprecise language makes productive conversation impossible.
When "slop" expands from "AI-generated Facebook nonsense that fools your uncle" to "anything culturally overexposed," we lose a useful diagnostic term and gain only cultural posturing..
What I found particularly insightful is the connection to Orwell's observation about insincerity. The real "slop" here isn't Taylor Swift, it's the lazy thinking that uses "slop" as a substitute for actual cultural criticism. As Marvin Minsky once noted, "The problem is not that machines think too little, but that people think too little about what thinking means."
I've been exploring these questions in my newsletter *A Short Distance Ahead*, where I trace how we got from Turing's original question: ‘Can machines think?’ about machine intelligence to our current moment of linguistic confusion. Each week, I look at a year in AI history to understand how we arrived at today's debates about authenticity, intelligence, and what deserves our attention.
https://shortdistance.substack.com/p/the-year-was-1999
The precision of language is critical for how we think clearly about the future we're building together.
Thanks for this.
It’s increasingly apparent, with 1990s era media monopoly power disintegrating further and further and the “cool” journalists it once employed increasingly finding themselves with less and less reach, that the Cultural Gatekeepers are having to try harder and harder to put the gates and fences back up…but are clearly failing.
Fetch isn’t happening.
Blue Sky isn’t as blue as they claimed it to be.
Also, Sabrina Carpenter is the truth.
You can’t acknowledge slop clothing without acknowledging slop workers and slop shops. That’s slop erasure
Article slop