slop-ification of the modern web
The word slop used to refer to mud and food waste. Today its used to describe the sheer amount of substandard AI generated content plaguing the web. So much so that Merriam-Webster featured it as the 2025 word of the year.[4]
Writer Sibi Mark states:
“…it trains readers to treat the internet like a landfill they have to dig through to find anything real.” [8](see appendix)
Although low quality content isn’t new by any means, generative AI has streamlined its production[7] to an industrial scale, alongside platforms that actively facilitate its distribution. What once felt like an archive of the worlds knowledge has turned into a digital landfill; a dump cluttered with distractions, shifting our focus from understanding a topic to merely navigating the mess. At times, making it feel like our only option is to skim.