Merriam-Webster has declared slop as its 2025 word of the year. The dictionary defines slop as digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. This choice reflects a year dominated by a relentless flood of AI-generated material across nearly every digital platform. The term slop is intentionally evocative. Lexicographers note its mocking nature, comparing it to words like slime and sludge. It carries the wet, unpleasant sound of something to be avoided. Historically, slop meant soft mud in the 1700s, evolved to mean food waste or pig slop in the 1800s, and now broadly signifies rubbish or a product of little value. This linguistic history perfectly frames the current digital phenomenon. This year has seen an absolute deluge of this AI slop. Fake AI-generated movie trailers have proliferated on YouTube, while AI-created bands and songs have flooded music platforms like Spotify. The contamination has spread to food delivery apps, with services like Uber Eats inserting AI-generated promotional garbage into user interfaces. Social media feeds, particularly those of major platforms, have been intentionally stuffed with low-quality AI content, from bizarre videos of dogs to countless other forms of synthetic media. The pervasiveness has reached a point where even content shared between family members is often unrecognizable AI slop. This is a direct result of platform design choices that prioritize engagement through volume, often at the expense of quality and authenticity. In response to user fatigue, some platforms are beginning to offer tools to manage the onslaught. TikTok and Pinterest now provide options for users to tone down or dial back the amount of AI content in their feeds. Spotify has announced efforts to address AI slop on its service, though these measures have proven imperfect, as evidenced by an AI-generated copycat of a popular band going undetected on the platform for weeks. Conversely, other tech giants are leaning into the trend. Google, for instance, has integrated its Veo 3 video generator directly into YouTube Shorts, ensuring a new pipeline for AI-created content. This divergence in strategy highlights an industry at a crossroads, balancing between user experience and the cheap, scalable production of content. It remains unclear if 2025 will be remembered as the peak of the AI slop era or merely the beginning of a new normal. For now, the deluge shows no signs of stopping. The selection of slop as word of the year serves as a cultural timestamp, capturing the collective frustration and saturation point many feel toward the current output of generative AI. Merriam-Webster also highlighted several other notable words for 2025, including gerrymander, touch grass, performative, tariff, conclave, and six seven, reflecting a year of political, social, and online discourse.
