No one reads anything. But the thing exists. And that’s its point. If you’ve worked in media, advertising, marketing, or tech and sent an internal email, deck or doc you've felt it. The sinking feeling that the content itself matters less than the fact that something was communicated.
What’s important is that a message exists, in the right format, at the expected time, regardless of whether anyone reads it. The process was followed. Compliance, disguised as communication. The message did its job. You could call this content Internal Slop. “Don’t worry, it’s just for internal use anyway.” It’s a genre of content and a chronic drag on morale that’s been nagging me for years.
Recently, I was reminded of Internal Slop and the feeling it evokes when I read two articles, one in the Financial Times by Jacob Silverman called “Welcome to Slop World” and another in the New York Times by Ross Douthat called “An Age of Extinction is Coming. Here’s How to Survive.” I also watched a Substack Live about both pieces with Max Read and John Ganz.
All wrestle with the problem of “AI slop,” where it originates from and how to escape it. And both use metaphors.
To Silverman, AI slop is part of a larger “hostile internet,” inspired by the idea of hostile architecture. Through deliberate choices made by tech platforms, the internet is now a space that is “hostile to human flourishing.” The result is that we all act like schizophrenics. Ranting and raving to no one. Bots creating content to be ignored and ignoring content. Us mistaking that for voices worth answering. To Douthat, AI slop is the culmination of a broader process that resembles an evolutionary bottleneck. The substitution of the real by the digital, AI only intensifying the degree to which we’re letting non-human experience replace the human experience. I have a different theory: the Slop Leak.
Internal Slop was once contained inside organizations. Millennial-run ones like tech companies and creativity-adjacent departments have been the most fertile petri dishes for it. But now, thanks to AI, and the environment it emerged from, the style of Internal Slop has leaked out.
These organizations have a culture where communications-as-optics and box ticking rule. If it’s for internal use only, what it’s in the box doesn’t matter. Only that the box gets filled with something. And the culture of “for internal use only” has gone external. Now, everything on the internet is meant to be ignored.
From Silverman:
“An ‘any-piece-of-content-will-do’ philosophy…has come to dominate today’s internet. As human-created content loses its value, becoming grist for the insatiable data mills of artificial intelligence start-ups, this nonsensical tide of ‘AI slop’ has risen through the cracks.”
My theory is that AI slop echoes the internal incentives of the millennial knowledge worker organization.
We were the first people to create content-to-be-ignored and to completely ignore all content. AI is just catching up.
Sorry for letting the slop leak out.
The Shorter Stuff
I have watched this promo video for Jon Rafman’s “Proof of Concept” exhibition at Sprüth Magers Los Angeles 100 times. I fucking love it. (IG)
Watching “The Studio” on Apple TV+, I was really bothered by Seth Rogen’s suits. It feels like the suits are supposed to feel pompous and obnoxious to reflect Rogen’s character but also…Rogen himself really likes them. Can’t tell if there’s any self-awareness there. (NYT)
Offices are starting to ditch fluorescent lighting. (WSJ)
Zas has photos of Hendrix and the Beatles in his office. Not helping the dork allegations. (NYM)
“Misery slop” - Dean Kissick (X.com)
“i don’t think Hacks needs an aftershow to explain the episode to the viewer” - Dan Allegretto (X.com)
“Watching the basketball game and there was an ad for a credit union with the slogan ‘Money Like A Woman’” - Brooks Otterlake (X.com)
I love Jesse Armstrong, but something in my gut is telling me that this is gonna be a miss. Too on the nose. Not very funny actors. Hope I’m wrong. (YouTube)
Henry Blodget flirted with an AI assistant he created…and then posted about it. Unforced error. (Regenerator)