Late Stage Social Media and AI Slop

Creator Earns Comission

Everything is an Ad

Hopefully I’m not breaking this news to you. Opening up your phone or laptop is like logging directly into Times Square right now. Grayed-out bottom banners on videos and pictures saying “promoted” or “view shop,” as you swipe through stories of your friends’ new baby or your high school crush, ads for the newest Millennial-coded, direct-to-consumer pastel cookware are peppered seamlessly in between.

Instagram launched a feature in 2022 that allows you to only see your “favorites,” friends that you’ve hand-selected, in your feed. Let’s call this what it is: the Real People Feature. At least that’s what it felt like to me, a relatively easy way to have all the people you actually know, perhaps even like, and definitely want to see on your timeline. Opposed to the integrated ads and posts from people you can’t even remember following in the first place. (Did you know that you’re most definitely someones paid-for bot follower?) Despite the attempt, I’m pretty sure no one uses it.

Social media hasn’t felt like a place to “connect” for awhile. Instead it’s a hub of passive consumption, shopping apps masked as ways to facilitate community. The integrated advertisements, monetized content masked as earnest storytelling, and general spon-con has left the average user feeling at best hollow and at worst pissed off.

It’s not just advertising, it’s AI Slop

Finally, an Internet term that excites me 😍 So yeah, when it’s not just branded or monetized content, it’s AI slop. What does that mean? “Slop” is a younger sibling to “spam.” “AI-generated content, such as text and images, that is created to flood the internet with low-quality material. It's similar to the term "spam" for email, and can be found on social media accounts, message boards, and fake web pages.”

In a few short months the term has broadened to include more than just low-quality generated content. Internet-goers file creators making unoriginal content as AI slop and the Almighty Algorithms we’ve come to expect are also part of the trough. Believe it or not, users are getting bored with social feeds that focus on their interests. The navel-gazing has gotten boring.

Brands are Shouldering the Blame

Massive surprise: most people blame brands for killing the vibe. In attempts to sound human via Millennial/Gen Z speak, brands instead sound ubiquitous. Not sure what I mean? If you had the pleasure of being on the platform formally known as Twitter in the mid-2010’s you may have bore witness to the groundbreaking brand communication style that was: Wendy’s being combative and snarky. I’m being completely serious when I say they revolutionized the way brands think about social media.

Brands started to get snarky, hell they even started to get horny. But today every brand in existence is telling you how very mindful and demure they are. Brands-try-internet-speak is pervasive and tired.

As someone who works with brands every day, I see first hand how much or how little care goes into defining a brand’s tone of voice, how they sound and show up to consumers. When brands jump on these quick-churn ways of speaking, they lose that voice and any sort of distinction that could render them authentic to a consumer. Personally, I’m starting to wonder if all brands should have social media.

With love and respect @brands, you’re coming off a little desperate, a little… thirsty? What’s in it for Ore-Ida to jump on a TikTok trend if it’s not aligned with their core?

In Terms of Ubiquity, it’s Really Not Just Brands Though

Not trying to be a brand apologist, I swear. Bottom line, organic reach of any kind is hard to come by these days, not just for brands but for creators too. Everything feels boring and inauthentic. At the highest level, brands use these soulless trends to gain consumer approval and people seek to “game” the algorithm with tricks to boost engagement. See: clickbait titles and “hooks,” faux story-times, eating or applying makeup in videos to be prioritized in the algorithm, the list goes on and on and on.

The influencer marketing industry is projected to hit $22 billion by 2025 (less than 6 months away, lol.) So hey, I get it. Whatever it takes to get your bag I guess! But the common folk have had enough it seems.

The Only Way to Cut Through is by Being the Coolest in the Room

Good luck! I was chatting with a friend this weekend and it seems the only two reasons for pursuing social media these days are:

01 you’re getting paid to do it.

02 you genuinely like it.

I hate to be self-referential, but I wrote a piece a couple years ago about the Internet being boring. In fact, that’s why I started this blog to begin with. The same handful of companies were (and still are) making all platforms feel the same. I missed niche websites, “Mom and Pop Internet” so to speak. And from what it looks like, so do other people. The explosion of smaller platforms like Substack for example (hey, 👋🏻) are seeing user numbers skyrocket— only a matter of time before it falls victim to a similar, brand-centric fate, but fingers crossed. Smaller blogs and even print media is coming back into the forefront.

Every strategist and passive content consumer has identified the solve for all this late stage slop as “authenticity” and maybe that’s true. But maybe Mom and Pop Internet or social channels is a closer truth. Maybe it’s going offline all together— younger consumers would rather go analog than deal with the onslaught of targeted ads and algorithms. To hold attention or meaningfully connect, it’s not enough to make a chronically online joke, it’s not enough to hawk the top 5 drug store skincare products you’ve been paid to sell, nor is it having a singular “favorites” tab for you to see your friends a family amongst the clutter on Instagram.

Social media is due for a seismic shift and to be honest with y’all I don’t know what that looks like.