YouTube’s system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
YouTube’s system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
Isn’t that already covered without the additional metric of “effort”?
It’s not just that, but I do think that is a large part. The corporate and soulless part you called out.
I think the “just wanted to give the fans what they wanted” and Doyle’s ability to actually do just that saves it from the “little to no value” bit, which makes it pandering but not slop. The same can be said for a lot of movies, music, etc. Meanwhile a lot of street art is sloppy as hell from needing to rush due to illegality but that doesn’t necessarily make it bad either.
I think both that and the “Dear Alice” video are examples of reclaimed slop. Someone saw the “little” value in the ad and opted to amplify it. I would classify those and similar examples as memes distilled from slop.
“Misguided” doesn’t feel like it’s a necessary part of “slop” but I otherwise agree.
Going the other way with examples, I think we can both agree that Fruit Love Island is absolutely slop, despite many viewers caring a lot about it’s existence. But why exactly? And is it more or less “slop” than the original Love Island? Honestly I’m having a hard time justifying why Fruit Love Island isn’t an example of a ‘meme distilled from slop’ when I really want to call it ‘slop distilled from slop’.
I don’t think so. The effort is an important part of it.
That’s a good distinction, and I think one we should hang on to.
I think we may have hit upon another definitional difference here. “Slop” isn’t linguistically descended from “sloppy,” but rather both are descended from an older form of “slop,” referring to the gooey scrap that is fed to pigs. It is something which exists in great quantities but low quality, and which the farmer quickly and carelessly tips into a trough for the pigs to eat, caring little for it beyond that it exists.
“Sloppy” derived from that word, carrying with it the quick and unappealing connotations, while the modern definition of “slop” brought with it the carelessness, quantity, and force-feeding connotations.
I don’t think so. I think it was artists doing a job they could get paid for, but making good art within those constraints.
On reflection, that’s totally fair. I move to have that stricken from the record.
Huh. Well, today I learned about something against my will.
Anyway, yeah, definitely slop. I think it’s because the creator didn’t care about it, and expended almost no effort toward creating it. You can tell they didn’t care because they gave it all up. This is getting me less certain about the desire of the audience being important to something’s slop status; that’s probably way more subjective than this term needs.
That is an interesting question. Having never watched either, I don’t know that I’m qualified to respond. I will say that the people who work on reality TV are pretty hard-working, though; so I’m inclined to think it’s not slop. Bad art? Yes. But not slop.
Why? If someone is baking cookies it doesn’t improve the cookies if they have to run a mile for each ingredient. What am I missing? Is it just that someone being willing to run and get each ingredient demonstrates a level of care?
Good catch! I do think that’s a big part of the difference! In my old age I’ve definitely seen it go from sloppy->slop and in that process reclaim the old connotation of “low quality, high quantity animal feed”. Specifically, back in my day, it wasn’t uncommon to be using/hearing Microslop to refer to the company and it’s shitty half-ass product implementations since at least 2018 (with Edge and Bing specifically), but it was more about being ‘sloppy’ than ‘slop for the masses’ y’know?
It makes 100% sense that the more popular definition would’ve lost the ‘sloppy’ association and gone back to the ‘low quality, high quantity animal feed’.
However, bringing it back to the original topic, I do think that definition/perspective is more damning of Kurzkesagt. Their videos are rushed but they do take great care to not be sloppy in that way.
I think this is where we flip sides on the ‘sloppy’ vs. ‘slop’ distinction. I do think that objectively good art (if we pretend that’s a thing) can be slop if it’s purpose is ‘high volume animal feed’. That might be coming from the culinary association of things like sloppy joes, casseroles, mashed veggies, biscuits and gravy, MREs, etc. as ‘slop’ and sometimes even ‘tasty slop’.
I second that motion! The core concept was valid and beneficial a single extra word shouldn’t detract from that :P
…Sorry to curse you with that… I have a friend who is really into both reality TV and tiktok+Instagram who was absolutely raging about it when it was popular and assumed it was more common knowledge…
I’ve tried watching a couple episodes of Love Island with said friend and, for me, it felt like some of the most soulless TV I’ve ever seen. To avoid cursing you with that experience as well, my experience of it was that everyone on set looks dead inside, they’re all kissing eachother all the time but it doesn’t look like any of them are having any fun. Then the producers intentionally do a “game” that breaks the norms of monogamy and then all the contestants robotically do a big show of performative jealousy, hurt and anger before going back to some of the most depressing and uncomfortable kissing I’ve ever seen.
I was using that and Fruit Love Island as a foil because I half joked that the FLI characters at least had more soul and personality, albeit cartoonish, than the contestants in the original show and my friend agreed.
Sorry I apparently needed to vent about that, lol -_-;
I had to have a good think about this, because no, performative or unproductive effort doesn’t add anything. But…
…I think this gets closer—that the idea is important enough, that they cared enough, to put in the time and energy. But it has to be meaningful effort; the running-a-mile analogy wouldn’t qualify, but there’s a difference between someone serving me cookies that they worked at for hours to bake, and the same person handing me chemically-identical cookies that they purchased at the grocery store. Knowing that they cared enough to do that means that what they’re trying to express means a lot to them (or at least that I do).
Sloppers don’t have any messages that mean anything to them. They just care about the quantity; and in the case of AI, they literally can’t care about the message. But the Chobani animators and the poster designers in 19th century Paris have a message that means a lot to them, and they bury it under the advertisement so that their art gets out there and they can also feed their family.
Oh man, remember Windows Vista? That was a slop-y and sloppy trip.
Yeah, I think partially because it’s superficially quite polished. If you look closely you can see AI artifacts, but on a first glance it looks like an uncanny valley version of a polished, final product.
Hmmm. I’m going to have to think about it, but I really do think that the people there actually are putting in a ton of effort. And sometimes doing a bad job anyway, but I don’t think they put out a large enough quantity to reasonably call it slop. Still, I’m intrigued by the question.
Interesting. I don’t agree, but because at the end of the day, slop isn’t made for humans, so it can’t ever be objectively (granting your premise) good to the human palate. Guilty pleasure, sure. Perverse curiosity, yeah. But that isn’t saying much, as the “Love Island” conversation is about to talk more about.
That said, I think I see where you’re coming from. I do like me some sloppy joes and biscuits and gravy. Not all together, though.
Nah, I knew the risks when I signed up for this gig.
Dang. That sounds awful. Why do people subject themselves to that sort of…oh, prize money, right
That is one impressive bit of self-awareness, honestly. lol
That unfortunately tracks with overall American culture and it having deeply ingrained protestant work ethic. I was really hoping there was something more to it though
Why? Even my ‘all ads are slop’ position doesn’t preclude ads from having a message the creators and/or artists do care about. I unfortunately do think that most slop peddlers do genuinely, and often passionately, have a specific message/idea/belief they are trying to communicate/perpetuate.
The problem comes from not having rigorously interrogated that message or engaged with it in any fundamental way. I would agree that an issue with AI is that it shortens the time from idea->creation such that the creator has even less time to engage with what they’re creating and is even less likely to interrogate the message being spread. I would point to ‘Dear Alice’ as a perfect example of how that’s not an exclusively AI thing though.
You mean back when windows was good :P
Ooh, that’s a real good phrase! I’m stealing that!
I would agree! And I do understand they do seem to be trying to do their best given the environment they exist within.
Would comparing them to a prison chef be a good metaphor? It’s a hard job that takes a lot of work and they’re doing the best with what they’ve got, but the final outcome is still slop. They’re prisoners like the rest of us and I understand why they don’t defy the guards(funders and platforms) and raid the commissary, serve us the same meals that they provide for the guards, show up in solidarity during a strike, etc. but I do respect them significantly less for it.
I can see the distinction you’re pointing at but I don’t see the difference, it ‘feeds’ millions of people.
I don’t follow. Then who is it made for?
… On self reflection I might have a problem with high slop tolerance because I immediately went ‘if done right that could actually be pretty good!’
To be fair, I guess half the ‘fun’ of Love Island is the lack of personality? The explanation I got was that it was like watching someone stream playing ‘Sims’. The streamer then fucks with the ‘sims’ to see what happens giving the audience the ‘whats going to happen next!?’ high. As the audience you can project whatever personality you want onto the characters and the soullessness gives a blank canvas that allows the viewer to fill in the blanks which allows for a better reality tv show with broader mass appeal than could otherwise be created?
… Yeah I don’t really get it, but to each their yum.
I’m definitely not a grindset guy. I don’t mean this in a “prove yourself” sort of way, I mean it in a “making stuff that doesn’t matter is easy” sort of way. Maybe I’m too manipulated by the modern world, but I can’t think of a way to show that something matters to you aside from making some kind of sacrifice; of time, or energy, or whatever. I don’t mean “toiling for weeks on a tweet,” I mean “at least thinking about it for a few minutes.”
I think that’s the distinction I’m trying to make, though. If it’s slop, the creator doesn’t care about it. Doesn’t care enough to put in any actual effort, tries to flood the zone instead of thinking about it long enough to produce anything meaningful.
Yeah, so I think here you’re applying my definition to your example and pointing out that it doesn’t match. Which is what I would expect. Hence the conversation (which is excellent, incidentally).
That’s more or less what I mean by “effort,” though said in the negative. Well put.
I’m not sure what you mean by that.
Oh man, we were having such a nice conversation, and now we’ve gotta fight? Bummer. ;-)
With my warmest regards.
Fantastic analogy. Especially:
Agreed, same.
But now I think I’m starting to see that our disagreement is more one of very small degrees than of anything substantive. Maybe you figured that out a while ago.
The algorithm. It just has to pass muster long enough that the algorithm serves it up to a real human. I guess in this analogy, the algorithm is the uncultured swine. I think I buy that.
I think the problem there would be the tomato. It’s too sweet and tangy: I don’t think there’s much way to make it work with the creamy flavor of the sausage gravy. Source: sometimes I get a bit of jam in my biscuits and gravy, or ketchup in mac and cheese, with a somewhat unpleasant result.
When you put it that way, I’m annoyingly much more ok with it. So it’s a dating sim that you’re just not playing.
Not my thing either, but I guess I get it a little more now.
Sorry, definitely didn’t mean to imply you were just meant it in a ‘ah yes that makes sense in a broader cultural context’ way.
That is exactly what I’m pointing at with a ‘protestant ethic’ but it really comes down to specific definitions of ‘sacrifice’. A night out with friends could be described as a ‘sacrifice’ of time and money to show care/affection for those people, but if it’s something you enjoy is it really a sacrifice? As an example, I enjoy making things, and making things for others is a good source of both inspiration and ‘disposal’ for lack of better word. Making sure the things I make find good homes and not just making junk is a form of care in my opinion.
If it is something you don’t enjoy does that sacrifice actually show that care for others? Personally, I can think of few things worse than a night out with someone who doesn’t want to be there and isn’t having fun.
Watching Love Island with my friend wasn’t a sacrifice because I got the fun of watching a psychological horror film, they got their ‘sims’ playtime and we had an interesting/fun/silly discussion afterwards. In the same way that the time I’m spending talking to you isn’t a sacrifice because it’s providing interesting thoughts and perspectives that I might not run into otherwise is a useful challenge to my own beliefs/perspectives. Hopefully it’s the same for you?
It’s hard to understate the damage the ‘self-sacrifice’ mentality can cause. A lot of relationships are ruined by two people trying to show they care for eachother by deliberately and intentionally sabotaging themselves at every opportunity. A lot of ‘activism’ is people sacrificing their time and energy doing things that are well meaning but nobody asked for, help nobody, and often cause harm.
I do think it shows a desire or intent to care, but I don’t think it automatically or necessarily translates.
But if they spent a whole week thinking on that tweet then surely it’s more important to them than someone who only spent a few minutes! /s
I think this is a big piece actually! I would agree that spam is incapable of communication a message. Not that it doesn’t have one, but by ‘flooding the zone’ at best it gets filtered and ignored, at worst it triggers a severe reactionary response.
I do feel like there is still something we keep circling around here but I’m unsure what it is or how to suss it out.
The original commercial promotion a company that in reality is the antithesis of everything ‘solarpunk’ and which deliberately and intentionally does everything in its power to prevent the sort of future imagined in the commercial.
BRING IT! :P I think we can both agree 7 was actually pretty good. The extreme drop in quality from 7 to vista was shocking plus it now being old and dated makes comparisons hard. However, I would argue that 11 has more bugs, more adware/spyware, worse performance, less customization and less ‘salvagability’ than Vista. It just doesn’t feel as bad thanks to the slow enshittification that was 8, 8.1, 10.
My original comment was coming from that assumption but you, and others, did not think so and honestly it does still feel like I’m missing something big and important but we’ve spent how many words trying to find it? And I still don’t know what it could be. I do very much appreciate you being willing to explore it with me though! Thank you!
I was definitely coming from the perspective of the humans are the swine and the algorithm was the gatekeeper, logistics, feeding machine, etc. The prison analogy was partially to communicate that humans do often treat other humans like swine.
However I am realizing that’s a bit of a dated perspective and with the modern Internet the ‘algorithm’ is still the gatekeeper, etc. but the goal is primarily to feed bots to better sheepdog the humans. So the root miscommunication comes from conflating ‘slop’, aka “dogfood” with ‘slop’, aka “prison food”. So when I call ‘tablescraps’ slop it’s confusing because that’s neither food for dogs nor low quality dogfood, it’s premium dogfood! Describing the ingredients doesn’t clarify anything because it’s not really any different other than process and packaging. I think that’s the exact sort of insight I was looking for! Thank you! Does that all track for you as well?
Oh yeah. It’s definitely not a haphazardly mix together kind of thing. But a creamy bolognese sauce on biscuits? It’d be weird. But I’d try it!
…That’s such a better description of what we took 2 episodes to figure out how to communicate!