Post by @jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz

2026-07-08 08:17 UTC

The reason I mentioned this is, before AI slop we were already well into the era of being overwhelmed by human-generated “influencer” slop, thirst trapping, etc. And I did feel that in this era one had to be a little careful about saying what we’re all thinking about influencers lest you get branded with one of the many “isms” (there are so many!) that get thrown around these days.

Replies (2)

@robtrew@mathstodon.xyz 2026-07-08 08:58

@jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz Solemn talk of "-isms" began as 19c historiographic slop (part heresiology, part eschatology). Lazy reduction of real complexity to heraldic images on battle flags – understandably popular with undergraduate note-takers, and prominent in the kind of curriculum in which certainty and confidence are more cultivated, and more rewarded, than curiosity or experiment.

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@individeweal@mas.to 2026-07-08 09:00

@jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz there's no such thing as human generated slop. Humans can produce bad art / writing / content, but the whole definition of slop is that it's automatically produced by a machine that predicts likely combinations of words or images. I'm not a particular fan of influencers but there's still a vast chasm between merely artistically bad output, and fake output.

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