Likely many other, I’ve been grossed out by some of the shit getting churned out with generative ai. But it’s also made me notice some of the existing things that give me the same feeling.
Poorly translated stuff, as often seen on cheap Chinese imports, has the same uncanny valley awkwardness. It sounds like English, but it isn’t what an actual human who spoke English would say. And if we want to talk about an algorithm that’s gone rogue and is destroying the world while trying to fulfill some arbitary metrics, there’s always late-stage capitalism…
Anyone else notice things like this?
low effort, low quality, for making money because of it. Might not have either low effort or quality “tag” at times, but then its replaced by being harmful, which can be there with them too. So things like what fastfood companies squeeze out, tiktok content, illegal drugs, temu trash.
So maybe also anything that actively exploits humans in some way for monetary gains (ai exploits and harms creators, fastfood and drugs exploit and harm body, tiktok trash exploits and harms mind, temu trash exploits western economy and harms environment).
so in short, shit that would make world better place with its absence
Reaction videos - prime example of slop. WHO DAFUQ WATCHES THESE? Like, am I going crazy by not getting this? Why would I watch some person just sit there and react to shit, often exaggerating their reaction to get attention of a watcher, that brings literally 0 fucking worth to the original content?
Prank videos - only are second to reaction videos. 99% of the time are either fake or they do some questionable stuff to expectorating bystanders.
There’s two kinds of reaction videos. The more common type a lot of streamers do is just garbage content stealing. The other is actually interesting or entertaining to watch.
I dont mind them when the reactor is a specialist (like a physicist or chemist or something) who normally produce their own content reacting to a realted thing. Pure react channels are pretty trash tho
shorts, ads, fast food
Short form video comedy with cringy facial expressions synced to music is my most hated example
Just about any short form video site.
Most paperback novels sold in grocery stores
90% of the Steam library
Fast fashion
Kitchen appliances with superfluous electronics
Battery powered scooters that can’t handle a mild incline
etc etc
Influenza.
Recipe websites.
Any trump speech.
For recipe sites use the Broccoli app. Scrapes off the SEO gunk and saves the recipe locally.
*Most recipe sites.
JustOneCookbook is very brief on backstory. Anything mentioned is usually related in context to the dish like culture things or substitutions.But besides that page? Very unusual to have minimal background info strictly related to the recipe.
YouTube channels that are mostly just reading Reddit comments.
Even if they discuss the content of it?
Similarly, youtube channels about disaster events that are just reading the Wikipedia page with some spooky music.
Especially if it’s using that annoyingly upbeat robot voice.
That would be AI slop by most standards since the robot voice is “AI” in a way.
Or reading “am I the asshole” or “relationship advice” posts.
Fuck. I hate so much of this crap.
A lot of these are also AI slop nowadays too
fast food…
at this point can you even call that meat?
I grew up poor where you don’t throw away food.
But yeah I’m not eating at Carl’s Jr. That shit is nasty.
Temu dollar garbage. Especially 3D printed stuff
Side qustion:
AliExpress doesnt pretend to be the “THIS ARTICLE HAS A 99% DISCOUNT!!! Buy now!!!” (and I choose to ingore the discount codes which apply at >200€ cart value).Would you consider their stuff slop?
Trashy sure but some of the stuff is actually better than getting the same on Amazon.I’ve been buying from alibaba and aliexpress for years and I’ve never had anything INAD or otherwise temu style shitty come from there. It’s literally Amazon without the middleman.
The “cooking blog” style where a simple answer to a simple question has to be padded with eight paragraphs of garbage. Like, I just want to know how to put a comment in a YAML file. I don’t need a table of contents for this, I don’t need to hear a brief history of how the comment was invented, just tell me the character to type.
what is the reason behind this? i never understood it. is the garbage supposed to raise the SEO score or something?
More screen length = more space for embedded video ads.
When it was recipes they claimed it was copyright related. If another site stole your whole recipe plus the story you know it’s stolen. Just saying to hard boil eggs, split em, add mayo and mustard… well that’s just any deviled eggs.
If you’re not adding Sriracha to them, it’s not deviled eggs. 😀
any maga conspiracy theories
“Silverberg’s Law”
Someone once asked science fiction writer Robert Silverberg why 90% of the SF stories they read were crap.
Silverberg replied that 90% of everything is crap.
You mean Sturgeon’s law, right?
And that’s why older media is usually better. Only the good parts have survived and the 90% has been forgotten.
The trouble is that a lot of the good stuff is forgotten as well.
Here are some movies you’ve probably never heard of.
“The Day of the Jackal” [original]
“The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” [original]
“Silent Partner” Elliot Gould
“The 3 Musketeers” Raquel Welch and Oliver Reed.
“Little Big Man”
I never hear them mentioned but people will rewatch a Hitchcock movie fifty times.
Sadly true (and yeah, I didn’t know about those movies)
Amazon. It’s a gigantic warehouse of slop
Cars have been a prime example, IMO, for a long while.
Oh, the screen on your center console cracked or is out of date? You can’t fix it on your own and you need the dealership to do it and if they can’t, you need to upgrade your vehicle because they make the vehicle almost impossible to run without it.
Want to change your oil? A well known brandnI cannot think of the name of right now needs to approve! Heated seats? I think it was BMW that planned on charging you a subscription service for that.
I’m predicting in less than a decade, if things don’t change, you’ll not only be selling a liver for that car, but also all your healthy organs to be able to afford the subscription service to be able to start your car.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the kids pretending to be adults who own a vehicle so damn tall that they have to climb into it using a step thing in the side. I’m talking average height or taller and no visible signs that they struggle to enter ( other than being too short ). It’s like watching an entitled toddler try to walk up stairs for the first time. You can’t help but pity them, or at least I can’t.
