"Creepy, zany and demonstrably fake content is often called "slop." The word's proliferation online, in part thanks to the widespread availability of generative artificial intelligence, landed it Merriam-Webster's 2025 word of the year. "It's such an illustrative word," said Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster's president, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday's announcement. "It's part of a transformative technology, AI, and it's something that people have found fascinating, annoying and a little bit ridiculous.""
""Slop" was first used in the 1700s to mean soft mud, but it evolved more generally to mean something of little value. The definition has since expanded to mean "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence." In other words, "you know, absurd videos, weird advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks real, junky AI-written digital books," Barlow said."
The term "slop" denotes creepy, zany and demonstrably fake digital content often produced by generative AI. The word originated in the 1700s to mean soft mud and later came to mean something of little value; the definition now specifically covers low-quality digital output produced in quantity by artificial intelligence. Examples include absurd videos, weird advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks real, and junky AI-written books. Accessible AI video generators can create realistic clips from simple text prompts, fueling concerns about misinformation, deepfakes, copyright, and political manipulation of imagery.
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