Hi Manoel! Some thoughts. First, really appreciate your note on memetic play. This is quite obvious, but Italian brainrot and fruit soap operas usually work in the same way that most folklore does, by taking a few archetypical characters and putting them in situations that dramatize some cultural anxiety like infidelity (ex. the pregnancy trope), class difference (ex. the "changing appearances" trope), etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Recurring_elements_in_folklore). I think the videos deserve some careful reading beyond focusing on what the medium “does” abstractly.
Re: your specific argument, I agree that the problem with “AI slop” is that we link AI to it, which, as you say, may be attributing too much importance to the technology. Ex. What difference would it make to us if we learned, for example, that T*ylor Sw*ft's last album was made with AI? Would it make it much worse, better? What I wonder is, then, how we can think of AI slop within a broader genealogy of slop--critiques of technology and mass culture, which was a core concern of media studies until the 90s...!
I liked that you articulate what goes into calling something slop. I think there’s a lot of social dynamics behind it too, it’s not only about quality, it’s also about social status, and wanting to differentiate yourself from what becomes commodity
Hi Manoel! Some thoughts. First, really appreciate your note on memetic play. This is quite obvious, but Italian brainrot and fruit soap operas usually work in the same way that most folklore does, by taking a few archetypical characters and putting them in situations that dramatize some cultural anxiety like infidelity (ex. the pregnancy trope), class difference (ex. the "changing appearances" trope), etc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Recurring_elements_in_folklore). I think the videos deserve some careful reading beyond focusing on what the medium “does” abstractly.
Re: your specific argument, I agree that the problem with “AI slop” is that we link AI to it, which, as you say, may be attributing too much importance to the technology. Ex. What difference would it make to us if we learned, for example, that T*ylor Sw*ft's last album was made with AI? Would it make it much worse, better? What I wonder is, then, how we can think of AI slop within a broader genealogy of slop--critiques of technology and mass culture, which was a core concern of media studies until the 90s...!
I liked that you articulate what goes into calling something slop. I think there’s a lot of social dynamics behind it too, it’s not only about quality, it’s also about social status, and wanting to differentiate yourself from what becomes commodity
Great piece. Hadn't thought about the term itself being the source of the disagreement.
Agreed. We’d all be doing ourselves a favor by doing so.