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.
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