A 2025 Version of Slop

Lots of people and organizations - especially dictionary publishers - do their Words of the Year lists. 

I saw that the Word of the Year 2025 from Merriam-Webster is "SLOP."

Not a new word, so I figured it must have a new meaning or usage. Their editors define slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence. "

A little word we all know to sum up the videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste coworkers’ time… and lots of talking cats. 

People slop annoying, and they keep on clicking on it and watching and reading.

“AI Slop is Everywhere,” warned The Wall Street Journal, while admitting to enjoying some of those cats. 

“AI Slop Has Turned Social Media Into an Antisocial Wasteland,” reported CNET.

Slop is like slime, sludge, and muck. It has a wet sound and seems like something you don't want to get your hands on. But we do tend to grab at some of this ooze.

The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was “soft mud.” 

In the 1800s, it came to mean “food waste” (as in “pig slop”), and then more generally, “rubbish” or “a product of little or no value.”

A few other possible hot words or terms of 2025. You can look them up if you're curious.

• Gerrymander 
• Touch Grass
• Performative
• Tariff
• Six Seven 
• Conclave