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TikTok is not the reason we watch ‘slop’, burnout is
Social media is often blamed for the lowbrow content and products many people enjoy, but it’s not the real culprit.
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The suffocating pressure of modern life beyond work breeds anxiety and tension, for which we need a salve. That salve often comes in the form of the same device that induces so much angst.
PHOTO: AFP
Erin Lowry
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Social media is often the scapegoat for just about everything wrong in modern society. The latest thing it’s getting blamed for is “slop”. Originally, the term refers to the pervasiveness of low-quality artificial intelligence-generated content that is flooding social feeds, but it has turned into a catch-all for much of today’s subpar products and content.
Laying all of this at the feet of social platforms is a mistake, though. Slop is not a new phenomenon. Each generation can point to moments in which the old guard decried that the latest media or gadget was brain-rotting sludge. In my lifetime, it’s been everything from hip-hop and grunge music to the rise of reality television and violent video games, such as Call Of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, to the BlackBerry – which was so addictive it was nicknamed Crackberry.
