Slop Economics

[@PillarofGarbage]

Go to my sponsor tryclickup.co/pillarofgarbage to organize all of your big projects and goals for free! & support the channel directly here: www.patreon.com/pillarofgarbage :)

[@starship_01]

Check our Demonitization in India in 2016. That’s perfect Perverse effect. What India has been suffering from 2014, US will suffer from 2025. Welcome to the club.

[@sunyavadin]

My Orion Privateer in Star Trek Online calls it "The Tribble Effect". The Klingon Empire offer a bounty for turning in dead Tribbles. Tribbles, as any Star Trek fan will tell you, are incredibly easy to breed. I have made a fortune in the game from this fact.

[@R1ver7th]

going to watch at 2x speed so i can slop up all the garbage before anyone else

[@smartsmartie7142]

Leave me some of that sweet sweet slop

[@R1ver7th]

@smartsmartie7142 no 😈😈😈😈

[@e2b265]

@@R1ver7thCurse you, slopper.

[@videogamesarecool9280]

get in the futurama binge machine

[@ORGAniZMs]

I can only do 1.5x, im not a young slop consumer anymore.

[@rosemaryschild]

My prediction of this video's impact: a big youtuber will talk about it, the 2nd tier sloppers like pyro will talk about it and lampshade the fact that they're the problem, a creator from a niche community will make a video on their community's version of it, it'll be picked up by tiktok creators who will make small thinkpieces on it, and somebody will find a way to make it really racist and post it to reels

[@soumen_pradhan]

Mmm, trickle down sloponomics. 😋

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Honestly I miss when Pyro made quality videos…

[@ViniGamer222]

@@cosmicspacething3474 idk man i'd consider that 8 hour long darkwood video pretty quality i dont like the slop but i see why he does it, cant fund the big essays purely with main channel revenue

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@@ViniGamer222 Haven’t seen anything from his channel in a while tbf.

[@ViniGamer222]

@@cosmicspacething3474 fair yeah watch the darkwood video its ridiculously high effort i do hope he keeps this up but he could afford to make, atleast shorter videos, with the same amount of quality, just so we dont have to deal with months of just the live channel

[@Advent3546]

"Visual muzak" is maybe the most evil pairing of words I've ever heard in my life besides 'mayonnaise candy' or 'David Zaslav'

[@KARS_K]

I heard "visual muzak" first in TAWOG to describe the color beige 💀

[@Jcewazhere]

Mayonnaise cake is a real thing. Basically you swap out the oil and eggs in a 'normal' cake with mayo.

[@kohai-kun9261]

"maynnaise candy" right then, to jail with you. Posthaste. Off you go!

[@TSDTalks22]

The other downside to this phenomenon is that when you're so inundated with movies/music/shows/games/whatever that's "just okay" or even "decent", it kind of can wear on you after a while. Art is one of the best things about humanity. We can express deeply held beliefs, feel catharically passionate emotions, and connect with each other just through a well told story, a well made piece of art. Even badly made or offensive artpieces can have that effect, because you're exercising those emotional cores. Mediocrity doesn't do that. It distracts you, but it doesn't energize you with that emotional response, and so it becomes tiring. This, I think, has been my complaint with much of Marvel's output recently. I don't necessarily think it's bad or horrible (minus some exceptions), but I also don't feel particularly strongly about it the other way either. It's been feeling less and less like a story made by people with a point to make more and more like content made to keep my attention so that I'll pay for this month's Disney + subscription. And that's tiring. I don't think all is lost or anything. Great art is still being made and will always still be made. But it's definitely more profitable for the most powerful forces in the world to make 'slop' as defined here than to make art.

[@ship05u]

I mostly agree though mediocre, plain average or even just above average Art shouldn't be bundled into that. I'd say that for a majority of Artists out there, we spend a LOT of our time in the space b/w what's perceived as the 'good' and the 'bad' in other words mediocre in the process of honing or getting better at the craft in terms of knowledge, understanding and the lived experience. Artists have to go through this phase knowing that for a long time or so they very likely aren't gonna be making anything special and interesting or anything that expresses their own thinking or emotions in a way that it communicates those well enough to the viewer/audience but it is still a vital step of the learning process nonetheless. That's why I am not really immediately aggressive towards 'mediocrity' in the Art as I initially see it as if an Artist is trying to figure themselves out and are in their own journey for such. However, when the mediocrity is the intention and the idea itself is to make intentionally non-challenging, conforming, safe and bland Art that doesn't have anything much of substance to say for mass appeal (very much Junk Food esque) or for the sake of putting it out there for monetary incentive then I can't really excuse that a whole lot either as it's a terrible choice that an Artist is making to feed their empty stomach over the integrity of not just their but entirety of the craft at large which could also be a result of constant devaluation of Art at large and the shitty financial conditions that overwhelming majority of us all are in. It's worse if an Artist who's already of an established name and fame is doing that in a cynical manner (if said established Artist tried to experiment late in their career but couldn't stick the landing then that's a different story for me). This is all to just say mediocre Art by itself is fine and isn't going anywhere either even when that is the vast majority of the Art in any medium. But this background noise or Visual Muzakification of Art nonsense by the higher ups def should not be tolerated.

[@fallingphoenix2341]

I wouldn't worry too much, we already saw this with radio and music. Music can be a transformative communal experience, but on the radio world famous insanely creative skilled musicians are strung together to create a commonly known repertoire of songs that all sound like they fit together, "the mainstream." The mainstream is ultimately just what everyone listens to, but people treat it as a style of music. Vietnam protest songs might have been deeply personal works of art to some, but to me they're just Forest Gump soundtrack. People don't mind the mainstream, some songs become loved by some even though they are mainstream, but to get really enthusiastic fans a musical act needs to convince an audience they aren't mainstream. Just a little, or maybe a lot, different from the mainstream, an expression of you, your friends, your in group. Ultimately that's the playing field all successful commercial arts engage with, be familiar enough that the audience is there, be different enough that your act performance stands out.

[@Kth77]

Interesting strategy to spend 60 million dollars to make something to fill the same roll as a podcast or let’s play I throw on when I do chores.

[@fluffynator6222]

That's surprising, I always felt like Lets Plays kind of lost their effect when only listened to

[@Kth77]

@@fluffynator6222 Well, typically it is a let's play I already watched and I particularly like the voice/personality of the player.

[@gewitterhund3164]

Now i understand why i find those productions so...empty. I am the guy who has movies on his FIRST screen. Because i love them. They degraded the main course to a supplement.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I don't watch movies (or series) often, so when I do, it's kind of an event. That's why this sounds so while to me.

[@gogongagis3395]

There’s an old executive interview where the gist is “what we learned from our streaming data is that people think they want the godfather, but they’re actually watching reality shows! So that’s what we’re gonna make!” Like… obviously I’m not watching The Godfather every single day. But I’m certainly not PAYING for access to Selling Sunset. What an insane logical leap to make. So unbelievably and obviously wrong-headed.

[@rickmel-q7m]

the trick is to trickle just enough godfathers in-between reality shows to keep people subscribed

[@nachro2190]

Lol, the more I hear from these people, the more I think executives revoke their humanity as like, a pre set requirement

[@Nifava]

The concept of second screen content blows my mind. They are basically banking on the same strategy as long form videos on KZbin people use as background noise or to go to sleep. I mean, advertisers have to realize this eventually.

[@theX24968Z]

we are slowly reinventing radio's formula

[@hartthorn]

The idea of Slop also pairs very well with Cory Doctorow's "Enshitification of the Internet" discourse. How these various pressures we've built around everything slowly pushes ALL products to this "on life support" type model. And how it takes a considerable amount of EFFORT and CONVICTION to not fall into that pattern.

[@PillarofGarbage]

I totally agree. I almost brought in enshittification as a concept here, but I didn't want this to become too long a vid. There's definitely a lot of conceptual common ground, though.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Can you tell me where that specific video is? I can only find one from someone else…

[@hartthorn]

@@cosmicspacething3474 It's not really videos. Doctorow mainly works in written form, with articles and essays and the occasional twitter thread.

[@PlainclothesBandit]

​@@cosmicspacething3474 Doctorow's articles cover the concept more concisely, but if you're looking for video content, he did give a speech at Def Con that touches on the same ideas which you can find on Def Con's channel.

[@jesusmguerrero]

​@@cosmicspacething3474if you just search doctorow enshittification, there should be some videos of him giving talks at different conferences. I think there was a recent one at defcon or something

[@spartanvenom5388]

I was so confused when you started talking about Damsel…mainly because I had never once even heard of its existence before this video; I never heard anyone talk about, nor did it ever pop when I went on Netflix Although the only times I’ve used Netflix lately was to watch some Trsnsformers Prime again.

[@tazandalsoalastname]

It might be region based or something because I've also never heard of it 🤷

[@xenotiic8356]

Maybe it would be cheaper to buy the Blu Rays or something then if you're only watching like 1-2 shows?

[@osirisatot19]

I saw it advertised at me on Netflix; but it being the most watch thing never made sense to me until I saw this video, I didn't see anyone talking about it.

[@GerinoMorn]

I go on Netflix once a month to see if there's something that'd interest me. Haven't even heard of Damsel. And I'm subscribed to a lot of media/movie commentary channels...

[@GiggingwithTheGoon]

Same. Our house watches netflix at least 5 times a week and I've never even SEEN that advertised. Nobody I know has ever talked about it. Never even heard of the thing 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@Scerttle]

I had a weird conversation with a mate about how I was struggling to get through watching stuff because it all feels like a slog, and they asked what I was doing while watching stuff. I responded "Nothing? I'm watching stuff?" and they were like "there's your problem". Like... WHAT?? No? If I'm watching stuff I want to... watch stuff.

[@Scerttle]

It occurs to me that this is a mate from uni and like 10 years younger than me though.

[@Scerttle]

27:10 this is exactly what happened. Earlier this year (around July, I want to say) Netflix did their price hikes here in Australia. I had a look at their front page and had a real hard think about how much I cared about the stuff they were showing me and that was the end of it. They've sent me monthly emails asking me to come back since and it honestly feels like a toxic ex trying to get back together lol

[@rickmel-q7m]

have you tried watching good things?

[@Scerttle]

@@rickmel-q7m YEP. I've completely given up on a bunch of shows. Problem is, marketing has become so generic that you'll sometimes let something good pass you by because its marketing was terrible... and because of the outlined problem above you can't exactly trust word-of-mouth either.

[@rickmel-q7m]

@@Scerttle personal example: i binged the whole 1st season of arcane and the 3 new episodes of season 2 in a day, then watched both dune movies the following one but i can't watch an episode of re:zero without pausing to do something every 2 minutes (because i find it unbearable)

[@daisygarnett2148]

This is why I loved better call saul so much, there was so much rich visual story telling that you had to pay attention to in order to understand the thrilling story. Turns out, paying attention to something for more than one minute can actually have a massive pay off!

[@vulturesareunderrated]

Slop media feels inseparable from the rise of 24 hours news and edutainment. Just enough information to not technically be a waste of time but never actually engaging with any topic in-depth because it would slow down the content mill.

[@lucariorules1077]

As the world’s most shameless Imagine Dragons fan, Loom was absolutely heartbreaking. Repeating lines and empty choruses. As someone who loves singing songs out loud, the lyrics of that album just make me feel bored and stupid. I don’t have the musical vocabulary to go in depth but wow it feels like a punch to the face for putting up with the memes and loving Imagine Dragons for the past decade.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

I never thought they would sink THAT low…

[@Doomrider47]

My "waking up from the matrix" about stuff like this was seeing Green Day go Emo. Completely put the game out for all to see, kinda been analytical and cynical since

[@pbbbtttt8185]

it could be worse. look at 2024 katy perry. also, everyone needs to stop doing anti-choruses for the next 30 years

[@otherlego]

Imagine Dragons fan realizes that they’re bad

[@Spamhard]

@@otherlego People can enjoy bad things. I'm sure everything you've ever enjoyed in your life is high art, and considered literal perfection by every critic and person in the world ever.

[@Shadowpaw67]

Slop feels like the evolution of the term "Content"- As we watched "Content" become the goal of so many metrics, (requiring daily uploads, multiple social media posts a day, libraries of exclusive shows for streaming,) all those things devolved into the most by-the-numbers, inoffensive, ignorable-background-noise version of themselves- just Slop.

[@blzzz]

"Visual muzak" is so dystopian. It makes me uncomforatable in a way I can't describe.

[@awbeans982]

It feels accurate though

[@foogriffy]

we already had visual muzak. it's called music videos

[@corey4448]

I remember reading 451 degrees Fahrenheit , there’s a protagonist’s wife, which always had earbuds on with music or smth like that, and because of that she speaks with her husband by reading his lips. That looks like the future we’re going to get

[@elivcdxv1852]

​@@corey4448 is this a fahrenheit 451 reference

[@xIQ188x]

I can’t stop laughing at the idea of a grown up hearing the words “visual muzak” and going “well that’s just dystopian.” 😂

[@xKraize]

"once you see these patterns, you see them everywhere". And it's not just KZbin. Everywhere you look, once you see a pattern, I cannot unsee them. Drama Stuff, "Reaction Chains", 7 hour long Essays, Discussions over the same topics over and over and over again. Maybe its just me, but I'm just so tired of seeing seemingly the same stuff all day every day - maybe its just because of studying sociology but its really tiring seeing everything only in patterns

[@thevioletskull8158]

Try searching other things maybe

[@MistyDusker]

It gets really brutal to look at the internet on the weekends. Its like I already saw everything it could offer me on every platform in the workweek and I'm trying to push past algorithms and think for myself. I swear online media has been wearing me down lately and I've considered unplugging and reading books instead. I just want to think differently or feel like I have control over the media I consume. It's not different to when cable stopped being paid for because it was hundreds of channels of nothing I cared about and shows on repeat.

[@lefishe5845]

.. God do not do this to me. I am tired and relapsing in my little ol cycle of cynicalism and hopelessness and the last thing I need to have in my mind is the idea that art is dying and nothing is worth watching.

[@BlueTyphoon2017]

I mean tbf the vast majority of those long essays are usually pretty good and come from a place of genuine passion for something or genuinely wanting to disprove right wing misinformation and disinformation online. Like this very channel, pillar of garbage for example, or Hbomberguy, contrapoints, Shaun the skull, three arrows, pinely as mentioned in this very video, philosophytube, big joel, and a TON of other good essayists I didn’t mention here because there’s simply and genuinely too many to name. Unless you’re talking specifically about hours long essays about random internet drama that disappears in one week? That specific type of drama videos?

[@tehy123]

>most of those are genuinely good Yes >trying to disprove right wing misinformation Oh, he's talking about the bad stuff

[@_Aarius_]

the video starting with the cobra effect tells me exactly what this video will be about lol

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

ah, yes... colonialism! (with the intonation of Jesse/wires)

[@NotSoSvenn]

showing asmongold while saying SLOP CONTENT could not be more true

[@daizenmarcurio]

Same thing goes for moist critical and damnear every react/ commentary tuber

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

Every time I hear of the cobra effect I imagine a story where the cobra effect is abused. Like imagine setting up a cobra pelt purchasing program COUNTING ON people breeding them because cobras are endangered or somethinglike.

[@awbeans982]

I was thinking how to fix the dilemma. Like maybe setting a time limit on the bounty could prevent the exploitation. Granted someone could still breed them hoping to call a bluff, but regardless, a little extra nuance and thought could likely solve the issue. That's just where my brain went lol

[@blackomega34]

@@awbeans982 Hunting cobras is always a brute force alternative to actual environmentalism. It is a bounty imposed by colonialists to maximize productivity of crops they're exploiting. So it's a solution to a problem that isn't worth solving. The solution to the cobra dilemma is to stop trying to maximize revenue at the expense of nature.

[@kohai-kun9261]

​@@blackomega34oops, ya dropped this, mate 👑

[@orterves]

​@awbeans982 tax people and use the taxes to fund cobra hunting teams

[@FlameQwert]

@@orterves now it's even more perverse- now even the government is incentivised to ensure cobras are always around so the Cobra Tax is always in effect and that the cobra hunting teams remain employed eventually leading to decades of a Cobra Tax paying for a purely ceremonial cobra hunter unit that's mostly used by the colonial government as a hit squad against dissidents

[@UsingGorillaLogic]

Gaming slop showed what people tend to do eventually is they just go backwards to stuff that was good before the slop. Everyone I know mostly plays indie games or old games for example

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Except for Nintendo, who despite everything can still make good games

[@UsingGorillaLogic]

@cosmicspacething3474 fair fair, but honestly even then so prefer Mario 64 to any modern Mario game I have played and they have never topped Mario Party 6

[@wadespencer3623]

Or like, one giant single-player game a year. BG3 for me.

[@dinoblacklane1640]

Despite western AAA being a dumster fire. Indies and eastern games are doing very good.

[@rickmel-q7m]

@@dinoblacklane1640 that's a good example of "survivor bias", as in you mostly hear about the indie/asian games that do well, so you assume they're better overall when that's not the case. to use "gacha games" as an example, everyone hears about the big ones like genshin impact and honkai star rail, so they think gacha games always make tons of money, but the vast majority of them shuts down a few months after launch (they're so unpopular that nobody hears about them)

[@marnix2995]

Aside from the cobra effect, Netflix's chasing of "second screen content" also seems to be an example of Goodhart's law. Which goes something like: When a measure (dead cobras/viewer numbers/concurrent player counts) becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Making movies that are designed to not pay attention to may eventually mean people start paying attention to something else entirely.

[@MILOPETIT]

For anyone wondering, the constant low quality slop is because of capitalism. Not because of "woke".

[@PosiWritesStories]

Clearly you haven’t considered that if I only ever saw people who looked exactly like me on screen the disastrous effects of profit-driven industry would cease to exist

[@chaserseven2886]

this assumes that it wouldn't happen in any other system let's not simplify it to "capitalism bad" because you'll just end up the same as the people who cry woke

[@davidjones8043]

Lmfao how delusional are you? Let me guess you identify as something vague and undefinable that can change at any moment 😂 it’s because of woke genius, capitalism would be them making movies people WANT TO PAY FOR. Dear god what grade did you drop out in? Or let me guess you went to a liberal college and aced your emotional IQ classes on sensitivity 😂

[@MILOPETIT]

@PosiWritesStories You foolishly forget about this *insidious group of people* who look exactly like you but are secretly different in a way that makes you feel angry.

[@kezia8027]

@@MILOPETIT Looks like the woke-inati got to you too. Wake up sheeple! this "low quality slop" is clearly a CIA psy-op designed to weaken the minds of the american public to allow big pharma to sell more gay frogs!

[@spacechemsol4288]

Slop is whats left when you take all the character/soul out of things. Its a soft inoffensive mush, that also doesnt get anyone excited and that means people will at some point just leave because there are no stakes anymore. Its like a long distance relationship that gets weaker and weaker until its gone and noone misses it.

[@QuickNETTech]

I think of slop like those fake crabby patties in Spongebob with the gray goop inside, looks good on the outside, tastes fine, just don't look too close or you'll notice what you're really consuming

[@frtzkng]

Slop is art gone corporate. Creative works optimized for maximum monetary return even if that contradicts most aspects of "creative".

[@TheMrOkamiden]

Had this on in the background while doing my very belated dishes. Felt appropriate to do so, not just because I was very late in doing my dishes today.

[@AdamBrusselback]

Yo ho yo the pirate's life for me. When they got rid of "account sharing", and my wife couldn't watch at the house while i was watching on the road, screw that.

[@samclayton628]

I think another aspect of “slop” comes from the source of the term: pig slop is an amalgamation of a bunch of stuff they can digest, shoved into a trough for easy consumption. Slop content is made of a bunch of superior ideas boiled down to their most digestible-all style is stripped away. In my opinion, one of the best examples of this is XDefiant, the Ubisoft shooter. It tries to bring in the worlds of Rainbow Six, Far Cry, Splinter Cell, The Division, and so on; the problem is that none of their styles come into the game. Map design isn’t as thought-out as Far Cry, The Division’s post-apocalypse isn’t there, and the gameplay elements of Rainbow Six that make it fun and unique simply aren’t in the game (you can’t even ADS lean). It has no personality, nothing to grab onto, nothing to care about. It’s not actually bad, though-it’s got some decent points. It’s slop in the purest sense of the word-it took better ideas, blended them up, and then sacrificed style and uniqueness (art) for digestibility.

[@Coroplocs-Chameleon]

Slop consumes all… He who controls the Slop controls the universe.

[@tazandalsoalastname]

Soylent Green is people! 😱

[@BlueTyphoon2017]

What?🤨

[@nebufabu]

The Slop must flow...

[@hughquigley5337]

Talk to me once you get the Thanos gauntlet of slop

[@QBG]

As a fan of Imagine Dragons, video games, cinema, and art that demands to be your _only_ screen, you _have_ to have seen and loved Arcane, right? _Right!?_

[@Killerbee4712]

Bro actually clickbaited us with Moistcritical in the thumbnail whilst showing a video of someone who used Moistcritical in a thumbnail to clickbait us. What a gamer

[@emjeka_souls7147]

True but Moist does make slop content tho

[@TrulyAtrocious]

He baited me by being vague in the title and making me try to look at yhe comments to see if this video is also slop

[@austinbaccus]

​@@emjeka_souls7147 The day Moistcritical says something truly unique is the day hell freezes over. He only has the safest takes

[@Killerbee4712]

@@austinbaccus Only time he directly went outta the bubble was defending trans people from SNeako. That was a major W. He may play it safe, but least its generally good moral stance.

[@_xeere]

Now that I think about it, it's really funny that Netflix prioritises watch time. The less content people watch, the less they need to spend on servers streaming that content and the production of it. If anything, they should focus on producing as little content of a high quality as is needed to get people to keep paying.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

💯%. But this isn't understood by shareholders who want the line to go up. The way the money works at that level is it's always a pump and dump, the only thing that differentiates them is time (how long the grift goes on for). The more shareholders are onboard for higher share prices by being able to say "We have X number of users and they spend Y hours on the service each year" means that when those same investors are on the meetings for other streaming services they can compare one to the other rather than understanding different services have different demographics and should target different artistic merits. But due to The Line the shareholders boil it down to number of subscriptions × subscription price - expenditures

[@WoolyCow]

im gonna disagree with your take here. as a subscription service, their revenue is proportional to how long (in months and years) they can keep you using the platform. if they only produce a few bangers, you can very quickly exhaust the supply of shows on the platform, and consequently cancel the subscription. so instead, they aim to increase the amount of hours somebody needs to, and commits to, watch, so that this will translate into more subscription periods. i just briefly scanned their annual report, and they mentioned that admin costs (ie compute) scales at a slower rate than user growth, so they are still in their economy of scale phase and can benefit from attracting a broad audience, and any req/res and storage costs are still less than the gross benefit they provide on average. this is why long running sitcoms are pushed so hard, as not only do they literally require two months worth of subscription to binge, but also ensure there will be plenty of new content on the other side. subscription models dont tend incentivise quality. Especially when viewed at a macro level.

[@tehy123]

Or...they want people to keep watching their shows because they understand that people may unsubscribe if they don't. In theory "make just as much content as you have to" is great, but it's not that easy to pull off in practice. And it also doesn't bring in new subscribers.

[@_xeere]

@@tehy123 The video you just watched explained how the "minimal good content" strategy brought in new subscribers where the "maximise watch time" strategy is slowly killing the business.

[@hayleygullett]

Yes I've thought this exact thing. I think the small streaming platforms that are curated might be on to this model

[@hgmd3284]

i wish money was abolished as a concept. i dont care for the consequences, i just want greed gone forever.

[@nefderath1]

Humans will find something to hoard. Money is just a representative model of human greed.

[@anafu-sankanashi8933]

Money as we know it today is just a boiled down catalyst for trade status. Having a lot of money is not that different from owning a bull in older times, both represent trade and value. Honestly saddens me that there likely won't ever be a age where money isn't the main detractor of humanity.

[@b.a.r.c.l.a.y]

both of you need to read Debt by David Graeber

[@dexnacorn7807]

Money is sheep Money is food Money is farmland Money is homes People have always wanted these things sometimes more than they need or have any idea what to do when they get it That's greed Money is simply a thing that has value to everyone Not everyone was willing to sell the cow you wanted for the ten chickens you had but they sure as hell will accept this thingamajig that everyone wants and can trade for stuff with If we abolish money people will want more houses and sheep Nothing will change except that we will lose all the efficiency that paper money provides Unless you want to abolish ownership Which can only work in a hyper oppressive dictatorship where citizens have no rights and are basically work slaves that are easily exploited

[@b.a.r.c.l.a.y]

@@dexnacorn7807 alright well ill give you a short summary of Debt by David Graeber The whole "bartering a cow for ten chickens" before money is a complete myth. People in ancient times lived in tribes with gift economies, someone would help you one time and then they'd need your help another time. You didn't pay off everything in one trade, you were stuck with each other and helping each other out without keeping track of whos doing more than who. Historically speaking, the only times barter ever happened were times when the currency that already existed was so overinflated or useless that people would rather just exchange the stuff directly than deal with it. Money was invented for managing taxation and the military. Think of it this way, why would a government mint a bunch of coins, distribute it across a population, and then demand it back? If it was so valuable they'd just have the coins and keep them. They used the coins to fund the military, and taxed the citizens to get it back. The money had its value because it was the only thing the government would accept as legitimate taxation. I recommend you read the book yourself, its some good stuff.

[@melingdiab6613]

This video reminds me of the last few minutes of Lazerpig's video on Skull and Bones (pretty good video btw I reccomend it) and this is a sort of summary of his points. In a sense that he talked about how above all, we value numerical based data and intelligence above everything else as it is just easier for us to understand. How he put it: "Numbers are Logical, Humans are not; Warthunder has the most advanced matchmaking in the world and it's players will tell you that it doesn't work, KZbin's algorithm is the most advanced in the world and it doesn't work, and polling data is frequently wrong". We get into our heads that data and logic needs to be tweaked rather than completely disregarded no matter how wrong it is at accuratly guessing what people will do because it's easier to stick with what the numbers say without even having to ask a customer what they want to see.

[@sithdude2436]

I haven't played War Thundrr but KZbin's algorithm is actually pretty good imo. It's not perfect but it usually gives me what I want and especially within the last year I've been seeing a lot of new channels that I'm interested in

[@wadespencer3623]

I didn't expect a LazerPig reference here.

[@fluffynator6222]

Ok but polling can be done wrong. It used to be far more predictive but shifts in behavior and herding shake things up.

[@nachro2190]

Flashing back to that one character from Pacific Rim who said something along the lines of "math is as close as we get to the language of the gods"

[@malcontent79]

That the film you're trying to remember at around 9:30 is The Grey Man, honestly is hilariously in keeping with the character's intended goal of blending in. (I made a note right before restarting the film and you remembered it, lol. I really should watch these videos all the way through before commenting I guess)

[@Vinxian1]

I remember watching Damsel. It was a decent enough movie, but I genuinely kinda forgot it existed until you mentioned it in this video. I mainly remember feeling disappointed that all the twists were precisely what you expected them to be and I remember feeling like they didn't explore the notion that the dragon was a victim, but also a perpetrator. Even if the Dragon wasn't manipulated and those kids truly were heirs of the bad family. It's still perpetrating generational violence. And the movie seemed to brush past that having a happy ending where the dragon is now bff's with main girl. If anything it would be more interesting if main girl's ancestors really did wrong the dragon

[@BrandyandJimBearse]

I may be an old person, but I'm pretty sure that this has been the way of things for as long as art and capitalism have coxisted. "90% of everything is crap", after all.

[@nofunberg]

To some degree, yes. Just like SNL has always been 20% hilarious and 80% “eh.” But the concern voiced here, I think, is that Netflix is decisively aiming for mediocrity, whereas SNL just stumbles because it’s part of the creative process.

[@devofficialchannel]

Sturgeon's Law, I guess.

[@gamemaniac2013]

Reminds me of when I finally got the distinction between "Getting together with friends TO do activities" vs "Getting together with friends AND doing activities" I think slop and mediocrity does have a place in the world, but I really dislike the idea of making something middling on purpose. Netflix might as well just run random stuff on an inhouse computer in a closet, if they expect everyone to half-ignore the damn thing in the first place.

[@semi-decent1844]

I noticed earlier this year the only reason I still have Netflix is because they have a few of my mostafavorite shows that I will continue to rewatch my whole life but I decided that because that's the only reason I'm just going to buy them on DVD and then actually own them for my whole life

[@MC-lm7de]

Based and physical media pilled

[@Halrax_38]

Reminds of the recent Tolarian Community College video regarding the future of MTG, and the articles in the pinned comment below it. TLDR, once a company loses the trust of its customers, it loses all of them at once, and it takes decades to earn that trust back, so the usual result is bankruptcy. It has to be noticed before the tipping point is reached.

[@breawycker]

I quit MTG but i still watch his videos. All of the UB stuff and excess product makes me sad

[@PentexProductions]

2:15 - POG clearly going for max outrage engagement by using Emily in Paris as an example of a "forgettable streaming show."

[@kiapet286]

I saw a twitter thread describe the phenomenon as the "thermocline of trust"- the point at which people stop being willing to cash in on the trust built up and then slowly drained away, and abandon a company or product en masse.

[@DTHains]

Imagine Dragons is an incredibly talented band. I was an early Imagine Dragons, finding them a few years before they exploded. During my freshman year at college I saw them in concert 3 times and met them after shows. They were all incredibly down to earth. Their 3 original EPs are very very good, with a much more indie synth-driven sound that I really liked. Unfortunately over the years after they got bigger, their sound evolved into a style that i didn't really care for. I haven't listened to their last few albums, but once in a while I'll pull up on of their old EPs and give them a listen to remember the good old days.

[@goldengolem4670]

Here is a good standard: If it has Dwayne the Rock Johnson then it has a 99.99999% chance of being slop

[@Kagomai15]

God I was so disappointed by Red Notice. I really wanted to like it, it had a lot going for it, but the way they wrapped it up at the end like "haha you thought they were becoming friends naaahhh" made me so mad.

[@johnsmith-tw1nz]

So basically, "slop" is a personal vibe judgment one can have about how special a work feels and/or the perceived artistic effort was put into it.

[@TrulyAtrocious]

After years of research and hard work by basement dwellers everywhere, the internet has finally been graced with the sequel to "Woke"!!!

[@I_MightBeDemon]

@@TrulyAtrocious can't forget the anti-woke grifters, since negativity sells

[@TSDTalks22]

Cobra effect refers to that blue shiny guy from gi joe

[@jonathaneilbeck2263]

No the Cobra effect is when you're played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt but get recast in the sequel.

[@coobk]

no cobra is when you open a sushi restaurant with a whacky chef and a fat diver next to a great blue hole in wich somehow all the fish in the world exist

[@Breadcutter]

Pokemon is a great example of how the reliance on slop can ruin a work of art. Where Zelda and Mario are pushing the boundaries of their franchises with new releases, Pokemon is just resting on their Laurels and too this day it is working out for them

[@ScaryMason]

But how many Pokémon clones are out there? I know I had the original Digimon: what if tomogachi but for boys and the PS1 game that I still haven’t finished. There was that recently sued open world game that was monster tame & crafting & base builder. Zero Punctuation was my only exposure.

[@kolonarulez5222]

I can't believe how hideous and weird the new ones are. They barely resemble pokemon

[@hankboog462]

Sword and shield maybe but I will defend scarlet and violet til the day I'm buried even though I agree they aren't even very good. Pokemon scarlet and violet are passionate works made by creative and talented people that just were not given enough time to cook. They're unique, interesting, even meaningful art made on a slop timetable

[@timrosswood4259]

​@@hankboog462cap

[@carucath97]

I dunno the Pokemon leaks show that a lot of passion goes into the games but they are incredibly rushed, plus Legends Arceus was a huge shakeup. They obviously need more time and are being overwhelmed with the demands of Pokemon games being a vehicle for merch (the real money maker)

[@jonnygraham2372]

“Is all content just slop now?” “4:00 here let’s take an ad break!” “10:00 a few more ads for fast food!” Yep

[@User24x]

This sounds similar to when cable channels lost subscribers from investing in reality tv shows because reality tv had the most view counts. The subscribers would watch the shows, but they didn't value the content enough to keep subscribing to the channel. History repeats itself.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

Honestly your summary of Damsel makes it sound better than it probably is…

[@wadespencer3623]

Horror movie dressed up as fantasy definitely sounds like something interesting. There's plenty of fantasy horror in the sense of spooky demons and ghosts but not more traditional fantasy, and a DRAGON horror movie sounds like it would actually kick ass.

[@ducdantalion2317]

It is a 7 out of 10. It could us some polishing on the script, but it's good for the budget it got

[@erebusvonmori8050]

It's crap. Everything about it is above average in terms of production quality but the script is just... unaware of itself. It wants to be a story about empowerment but it's really about how you should forgive your abuser. The dragon is, to be blunt, a psychopath, and the attempt to show it favourably as a twist is frankly insane given its idea of morality is so outdated that it predates the Code of Hammurabi.

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@ Wasn’t the dragon also abused tho?

[@erebusvonmori8050]

@@cosmicspacething3474 Yes but also irrelevant in this case. Instead of punishing the person who did it it just decided to murder people who had nothing to do with the crime beyond being related to the person who did it. So equally as shit a person if not worse. Which wouldn't be an issue if the film didn't frame it as good and just.

[@jackthorndyke3390]

This video was a really interesting foray into defining a very pervasive abstract term. As much slop as there is out there, there still exist plenty of artistic creations on the market. Hell, Arcane season 2 is in the middle of releasing, and that's an excellent example of something that's had mountains of heart and soul pushed into it. Yet, similar to what you talked about at the end, it too is something cashing in on pre-existing good will and hype. I think most of its audience at this point probably hasn't even played League, but the existing IP certainly played into the excitement for the show initially. Would it be as popular as it ended up without that? Hard to say. Really interesting topic to discuss.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Watching the second season actively and I have to say that the whole production of Arcane is such a beautiful tour-de-force. The second season's intro despite reusing the Fallout Boy-esque strategy of provocative but forgettable and meaningless lyrics is a work of visual art that stands alone. The story narrative also stands alone despite it not needing to due to the quality of the world it's built upon (not the game, the writing the game is based on). There are occasional hitches where they refuse to retcon a niggle here or there, but I think this gets expressed as characters being ideologically fixated or mentally scarred. I was sad to hear the third season wouldn't get funding, but allegedly they're moving the camera to another location in the League universe which is great because a lot happens there with both geographic and temporal separation. We started watching because I know of the quality of the core writing so I had high expectations that were exceeded, it's just a massive pity that Riot decided to abandon 5% (1:19!) of the PC gaming market by blocking Linux gamers.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

It's amazing how cheap that Damsel looked and how little thought had gone into the fantasy world where different eras are just smashed together, for no reason but laziness and no time or budget given to set and costume designer's.

[@MemeticMutant]

My comment before watching more than the first 3 minutes of the video: "slop" in my experience identifies a kind of contempt for the consumer, and calling it such denotes a contempt for the creators of slop content

[@cosmicspacething3474]

IMO it’s more like apathy rather than contempt. It’s probably both tho

[@Yaarmehearty]

A youtube essay creator making a video about slop second screen white noise content is just such peak “almost self awareness”.

[@samfisher6606]

This description of slop sounds a lot like the definition I have for Mid. Because to me, mid has the added connotation of being disappointing. "The new album was mid, I thought it would be awesome!"

[@theaccountant5846]

I thought you were talking about weed 😂😂

[@IAmTheOnlyLucas]

The old adage applies perfectly to this verbiage. "It's mid, but sometimes the mid be hittin' tho."

[@TobiKatze]

It hust dawned on me that Slop is designed to "not be turned off" while non-slop (keeping it binary for the sake of simplicity) is designed to be "consciously turned on/purchased/engaged with". Thanks for your video, eye-opener for me. And it gave words and substance to a feeling I´ve been having for quite some time - but couldn´t put my finger on.

[@jpickens189]

1:04 *Perverse, I have been spelling baited.

[@PillarofGarbage]

man I proofwatched this video like 3 times as well :sadcowboy

[@retrofuture1989]

To end the slop, we need to disengage with the content, I barely even watch Netflix anymore although it may be due to being more interested in reading

[@thoughtprism2963]

People will always make meaningful art. It's just getting more and more difficult to find.

[@Alex-cw3rz]

One of the other reasons for the proliferation, is that Netflix choices which series to continue by a system where over 25 days the retention of the tv series has to be over 50% or the show or it is cancelled. It's why there are no anthology shows and why netflix is so bad at writing Black Mirror compared to channel 4. People leaving them on in the background so fingers crossed it goes past the threshold.

[@HOOOPER]

slop is enshittification of art

[@fantasyhero19]

14:11 My immediate thought on what changed is that Netflix started facing competition when new streaming services emerged and they could no longer claim to have everyone’s favorite shows on demand. They had to change and adapt to keep subscriptions.

[@zvndmvn]

Slop is just what happens when art becomes corrupted by money.

[@Igotboredatwork]

You being an Imagination Dragons fan is legimately my personal "Luke finding out Vader is his father" What an Earth shattering realization

[@PillarofGarbage]

none of us are perfect 😔

[@gruntmanthesound]

This video is the first time I've heard of Damsel. I'm not a Netflix subscriber, but many of my friends are and literally none of them have mentioned it, if anyone's curious about its cultural penetration.

[@stellaanderson570]

I watched this video while making some rice. I wasn't fully tuned in for every second, I left the screen to attend something else many times during my duration watching, and it was one of few half-hour videos I finished in one sitting as of late. That fact concerns me and I hope we as viewers can grow out of our attention spans decreasing, either through new habits or the changing of how we engage with content online.

[@user-lp3ew1xb5u]

It’s like soap operas for the working at home economy. Same thing, episodes you could dive into and the exact same plot and character interactions are happening … housewives could dip in and out while they were ironing the laundry.

[@StanSeder]

Capitalists be like “it made a shit load of money once so if we keep doing it over and over again it will keep making the same amount of money… right?”

[@oasntet]

Netflix and other services need to add a boolean field for which content was deliberately made to be "second screen" content, because I never, ever want to watch anything made specifically to be that. What is the point? I also don't understand what exec at Netflix is saying "second screen content is good, because it causes people to subscribe or continue their subscription." Who is going to, a month from now, while asking themselves whether to cancel Netflix, look at any second screen content and think "yeah, I should keep paying for that!" But my metrics don't count anymore. I gave up Netflix over a year ago. I forget which pretty-good series they canceled within a weak of release (because there were so many) but one of them woke me up to how broken their model is now.

[@Hi_Just_Fred]

Charlie is my favorite streaming platform

[@zenbrandon]

Literally the only thing i use Netflix for is Trolls for my kids. How the hell is Damsel #1, that just doesn't compute for me

[@najhoant]

1:48 Honestly, it’s at least sort of comforting that Society of the Snow came in third, that’s a really great movie

[@fami5893]

"vote with your wallet" your wallet:

[@Thelorecookie]

Right when we needed him the most he returned

[@PosiWritesStories]

Critikal kinda falls under the “positive slop” category for me. I don’t really get much from his videos beside very basic entertainment value, but I still get the value at the end of the day because he’s a decently funny guy with good wordplay.

[@soraparado9859]

y'all are fools. rich guy feeds you slop and you say "yum yum, tastes neutral good" edit: lol it seems that the two people who replied before me have deleted their replies

[@PosiWritesStories]

@@soraparado9859 I wouldn’t say I’m that uncritikal

[@mischief.brewed]

I've only watched him like a handful of times but to me he seems just like an idiot. Usually he comes out swinging with half baked or underdeveloped opinion and otherwise he just regurgitates like the facts of a story with only the occasional weird analogy thrown in. Other than that time he destroyed sneako that was pretty good.

[@PosiWritesStories]

@@mischief.brewed No doubt about it, he has some silly or downright rancid takes. idubbbz one comes to mind immediately. I think it’s gotten better since he moved away from drama content and is just covering mostly wacky stuff now. It’s where he’s best. The whole regurgitation thing is very true but at least he is funnier (subjectively) than most other people who do it.

[@mischief.brewed]

@PosiWritesStories that's a fair take

[@thatsruffdog]

I’m still stuck on the cobra thing. That’s barbaric to breed an animal just to kill it for money. And no, that’s not the same as farming. Those cobras are probably going to waste. Very few people are eating it or using it for the skin or something like that.

[@gwit4051]

I mean it'd be barbaric either way but yea

[@Rexotec]

Man, that bit on counterstrike... I don't play it but it just whacked me with a scary amount of deja vu about Overwatch...

[@SGWeber]

I've noticed elements of this in tabletop games too. Warhammer feels like the rough edges are being ground away, with less of the raw batshit insanity hiding biting satire that drew me in. In gameplay it's become less of a maneuver wargame and more of a contest of whose stat check unit is better. D&D feels more and more like a generic superhero videogame where you stack mechanical numbers to win carefully curated encounters, not a dungeon crawling game where you use the fictional world to avoid the grisly demise waiting around the corner. I don't think it's any wonder both games have notable numbers of people intentionally playing older versions, because those versions had stronger identities rather than trying for generic appeal.

[@EvelynNdenial]

5e definitely has no soul. it doesn't DO any genre or theme or playstyle. 4e had balanced tactical combat, 3.5 was a munchkins dream, 2e was a dungeoncrawler. it doesn't even do the high fantasy hero thing very well. its so close to being so many different things but its so poorly written its next to impossible to make a homebrew conversion work. i really want a ttrpg that can be a skeleton i can easily hang any genre i want on it. and add-ons already made to do the feel of 2e, 3.5, and the story focused high fantasy hero stuff 5e fails at.

[@TrulyAtrocious]

Nah that's not slop that's just building a metagame

[@toyosibee.mp3]

she slop of my eco till i nomics (But forreal, I've been thinking a lot about how the slopification of media ties into the enshittification of the internet, and how it's coalescing into media/art that are almost solely lazy regurgitations meant to appeal to the fandom/nostalgia of the people with money to spend...We barely ever get original things anymore, and then the 'original' stuff we get that has mass-market promotion is just SLOP!!!!!!!!! i hate it here!!!!)

[@prestoncrawford9258]

If you're looking for a slop definition, I think it's most closely related to the use of wood chips in bread to increase profit by reducing overhead costs. It's using high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. It's cheap preservatives and artificial flavors instead of fresh produce. It's small, supposedly unnoticeable substitutions to save on cost/effort to produce. A product becomes slop the moment the producer starts making those substitutions. But we don't recognize it as slop until those substitutions add up, and we can tell there is wood in the bread and artificial colors/flavors. The companies are just hoping that by the time you notice, you are already too hooked on an addictive product and/or have too much brand loyalty to turn away, especially if they have a monopoly and you have few places left to turn for a quality alternative. (It's literally what capitalism has always done)

[@virginiasaintj]

A video talking about slop while also being thirty-one minutes, having a sponsored ad, and saying nothing original seems like some kind of meta joke.

[@raresmircea7451]

There was a media/film critic channel I watched on Vimeo years ago and gist of one of his videos was: *art should uplift people, expose them to new ways of seeing, experiencing & being, but today’s movies are not an artistic manifestation as much as they are a financial one, their ultimate goal being money while their instrumental goal being to "hit the audiences where they are", giving them what they want, leaving them as they are*

[@ericsheldahl5158]

I actually really liked Damsel. My sister had read the book it was based on before seeing it, so she had some thoughts about how the adaptation was handled (and not all of them good), but to me that was just a fun conversation around a legitimately enjoyable film. ...though arguably "I Am Dragon" pulled off the "princess sacrificed to a dragon" thing a bit better in some respects. Might make an interesting comparison/contrast actually.

[@judahforshey1865]

Calling the Adam Project slop is a crime I won't easily forgive

[@Ivytheherbert]

The connection to neoliberal economism is particularly interesting, and appropriate since we've all seen the focus on simple economic indicators utterly fail to produce quality of life improvements and people are giving up on the parties that push it. However, in the case of political slop we've now reached the point where the bounties are being cancelled and the cobras are being released with the rise of the far-right. I guess what I want to say is that it'll be interesting to see what the online streaming version of brexit turns out to be!

[@n0refuge]

Great vid man. Everyone enjoys some slop and that's ok. As long as we know its slop, but we enjoy it despite that, there is nothing is wrong with enjoying the slop.

[@RJRedtail]

Netflix's slop strategy is the same thing network television has been doing for decades. The only difference is that it's being used in the medium of film rather than weekly tv shows.

[@grumpyginger99]

I would say it applied to movies as well historically. Just think of the numerous increasingly crappy sequels to horror movies that deluged video rental stores.

[@rickmel-q7m]

@@grumpyginger99 or the "christmas romcom" subgenre

[@Lucas-to2jc]

What annoys me the most about slop is how the so called "commentary youtubers" at best add the opinion is currently agreeing with 🙄

[@christianwhalen9263]

I had to double check, just like PoG, that I had in fact watched Damsel. I have almost no memory of watching Damsel, and my wife and I sat down and watched it together with no distractions

[@MarchingGrrl]

I was listening to this video while doing chores. When he said he was going to shake me until coins came out, I got angry and confused, then I stopped the video. Not good second screen material.

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

There's something worth considering though: At what point does "Second Screen" content start interfering with "primary screen"? I have games that I have trouble getting started because I know they're excellent and will require 100% of my attention, meaning I'd need to turn off screen #2 to enjoy them... so I start up Vampire Survivors instead because I can listen to something else while playing it. How long before your second screen becomes your primary screen?

[@blackomega34]

It's already here, and it's called scrolling tiktok. And it's so bad on there that they give you a third screen in the second screen full of distractions like soap cutting or random subway surfers gameplay in the corner next to the actual content of the video.

[@RaunienTheFirst]

FWIW, my attention was directed to this video and nothing else for the duration of its run time. I try to make sure that, whenever I intentionally "engage with content" (watch a tv show, play a video game, etc) my full attention is on that thing. It can be difficult because I have, uh, issues holding my attention, but I always try to make sure I'm engaging with all the senses that piece needs. A video essay for example might only need me to listen, so I can, say, put my phone on a shelf and listen to it in the bath. A film or tv show is, at least in theory, a full audio-visual experience, so the only reason I'd be switching to a second screen is if I'm *bored*. Production companies shouldn't be making boring things. I shouldn't be *able* to half-watch a show or film, at least not until I've already seen it a dozen times and it's become a comfort watch (looking at you, Good Place). I don't want to pay money to *not* be engaged, and if that's the way platforms like Netflix are going, they'll be losing my custom pretty quickly. As if it wasn't already bad enough that the streaming ecosystem has become unsustainably fragmented.

Sales are a great representation of customer satisfaction... But not before it's too late to do anything about it.

[@tecpaocelotl]

This is why I'm not into modern culture. Feels like the silly dystopian culture I made decades ago.

[@Nojintt]

Had this on while I was getting ready for work

[@jaimebabb9968]

Goodhart's Law: Once a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.

[@spnked9516]

For those interested, I highly recommend the documentary Valve did surrounding Half-life Alyx as it sheds a lot of light on how the company operates. To put it simply, Valve doesn't suffer from the bureaucratic blight basically every other company or organization suffers from in the modern Western world (the managerial class is the primary source of what one might call "slop" culture, by the way) - quite the opposite, actually. Valve suffers from a sort of schizophrenic lack of direction. People pretty much just work on what they want for as long as they want, then simply circulate from project to project as they get bored.

[@chloejarvis1]

Fantastic video - if you’re paying attention to everything, you’re paying attention to nothing fr fr

[@RabbiJoeInJerusalem]

You see it everywhere because this is how it has always worked. In the 80s, it was TV movies; in the 90s, it was direct-to-video. There's always been a tension between art and commerce, and both platforms and artists are going to be hungrier on their way up. The idea that it's somehow sinister to cast stars in movies or create art which is designed for home viewing, with all its inherent distractions... Well, at least it's creative. As opposed to the standard "stuff was cool when I was a kid, now I'm grown up and it sucks" refrain.

[@GeahkBurchill]

I admit, I was focused on some thing else while watching this video. I was focused on my own creative project and thinking about ways to make it marketable, but also prevent it from being slop. Don’t get me wrong, that was me being fully engaged with this video! I think that this video made me consider my own project shows how much relevance it has.