there’s a concept i want to put to words. i’ve considered various names for it, like slop-slipping or the slop slope. but neither of those feel quite right.
the idea was articulated in passing in a video i watched last year. but i want to hone in a particular point. the insight that got stuck in my head is that by its nature, slop is resting on your laurels. you don’t see many get their start cranking it out — rather, so often starts with high quality work and devolves later. the band make critically acclaimed albums then sells out, video essayist starts livestreaming and posting lazily cut clips
in the vein of the topical and endlessly repeated concept of enshittification, we can imagine there is an analogous ensloppification cycle. we can even give it matching stages:
- first, you create the best works you can to garner as large an audience you can.
- then, you find out what people will you pay for and target your works at them.
- then, you optimize your product to you can output efficiently without upsetting those customers.
- then, the magic is gone
the core of the slop slope is sunk costs — or, more charitably, investment. how many books and albums and shows are on your list to check out? how difficult is it to actually get around to any of them? but if there’s a new release or installment or update from a known quality, something you’ve already done the work to understand, something you know you like, obviously checking out more of it is a much easier ask.
when you build a jenga tower, there’s redundancy in it by design, each layer supported by three blocks below. you can easily remove blocks without bringing it all down, they aren’t necessary to the product — you’re just optimizing!
how far down the slope can you go before you slip?
yesterday, i watched a stream clip discussing the viewbotting situation on twitch. i won’t link it because i didn’t find it deeply substantive or insightful, but it was contended that many — maybe even most — streamers bot their views. and since sponsors will pay based on view numbers, this is almost equivalent to arriving to meetings in a rented limos or jets: presenting an image of success to that builds confidence before you land a deal. fake it to make it!
if most bodybuilders are on steroids, how do you compete with that? sure, everyone wants to make it big as the natural athlete. it’s so easy to view integrity as a virtue, an advantage, and think that you’ll draw an audience because you’re the one who isn’t cheating.
but most of the audience doesn’t care about that. integrity is a hindrance — that was the thesis of the clip. it was discussing faking stats, but it’s hard not to draw parallels to the mongers of vacuous mass-produced content.
and in either case, i think this cynicism is basically correct. it’s hard to argue for the discernment of the average consumer. but i do take issue with the flatness of this analysis: the reasoning that if more people don’t care about cheating than people who do, and cheating results in more success, then mathematically it’s better to cheat than to play fair
cheat egregiously enough and it’s obvious, so the meta is to not get caught; cheat in moderation. similarly, sloppification is seeking the minimal viable product. the meta is to not get dropped like dogshit
(this post isn’t about llms per se, but this is good as time to mention another insightful video which contends that the processes that reward middling or merely satisfactory outputs have been making things terrible since before this most virulent phase of )
the core thought i’ve been orbiting around here is that final slip, the last straw that prompts the drop. boil a frog and it will jump out of the pot (you have the lobotomize them for any other result) and if you serve your audience slop, they will be entertained, but they will just as easily find their entertainment elsewhere
all it takes is one careless nudge to start that chain reaction of “why am i even bothering with this?” in their heads. maybe there’s money to be made as a slopmonger, but it would give me so little security if i could imagine a fan having no better answer to this question than inertia, or “well, it’s okay enough.”
it’s difficult to find a way to conclude this line of thought. morals like “slow and steady wins the race”, the triumph of the human spirit, these are stories we love to tell ourselves. we love to cope and believe it’ll turn out okay in the end. i don’t know if i can look around and really believe that anymore.
and yet. i don’t think my next rhetorical move will surprise anyone, but i feel compelled to make it.
i can only think of deltarune. i can only think of silksong. they aren’t slop — and how could their cultural moment have happened if they were? even in this ocean of sewage, monuments of slow and painstaking craft emerge and that is what garners the lasting admiration deeper than mere attention.
the thing about going down the slop slope is, well… peak is the other way.