The Internet’s New Superpower: Making Garbage at Lightning Speed
AI Slop just became Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year. Your feed will never be the same.
WORD OF THE DAY: AI Slop
What It Is: Low-quality, mass-produced digital content churned out by AI with minimal human effort or oversight. Think of it as spam’s younger, more creative cousin who learned how to make videos.
The Vibe: Remember when “going viral” meant something was actually good? Those were simpler times.
What the Hell is AI Slop, Really?
Imagine if someone gave a toddler access to an AI video generator, told them they’d get paid for every video that got views, and then just... walked away. That’s basically what’s happening to the internet right now.
AI slop is digital content that checks all these boxes:
Made by AI (obviously)
Low quality (weird physics, things morphing into other things)
Mass produced (we’re talking dozens of videos per day from a single account)
Designed to game algorithms (the weirder, the better)
Often completely nonsensical (which somehow makes it more addictive)
It’s called “slop” because it’s the spam of the video age—except instead of offering you questionable pharmaceuticals, it’s offering you... bunnies jumping on trampolines.
The Greatest Hits: When AI Slop Fooled the Internet
Let’s talk about some instant classics that had millions of people going “Wait, is this real?”
The Bunnies on the Trampoline (July 2025)
The Slop: A Ring doorbell camera catches adorable bunnies discovering a backyard trampoline at night and having the time of their lives bouncing around.
The Reality: 230 million TikTok views. Shared by everyone’s mom. Completely, utterly, 100% fake.
The Tell: If you watched closely, one bunny literally disappears by merging into another bunny. Another one morphs into a gray blob mid-bounce. Also, real rabbits—you know, prey animals that are terrified of everything—would never just hop onto a weird springy surface and start partying.
The Damage: Made an entire generation of internet-savvy people question if they’d lost their edge. Top comment: “I’m getting scammed when I’m older” (923,000 likes).
Shaq Crying at Magic Johnson’s Bedside
The Slop: Heartbreaking image of Shaquille O’Neal in tears at Magic Johnson’s hospital bedside with the headline “Magic is dying.”
The Reality: Magic Johnson is fine. The photo was AI-generated. Still shared thousands of times by people who didn’t double-check.
The Lesson: Even fake celebrity death hoaxes have gone AI.
The Italian Brainrot Cinematic Universe
Okay, this one deserves its own section because it’s so wonderfully bizarre.
What is it? A collection of AI-generated characters with pseudo-Italian names that have somehow spawned an entire mythology:
Tralalero Tralala: A three-legged shark wearing Nike shoes. The OG character that started it all.
Ballerina Cappuccina: A ballerina with a cappuccino cup for a head. She’s married to...
Cappuccino Assassino: A ninja assassin with a cappuccino for a head and knives for limbs.
Bombardino Crocodilo: A World War II bomber plane with a crocodile’s head.
Tung Tung Tung Sahur: An anthropomorphic wooden plank with a baseball bat who comes for you if you skip pre-dawn Ramadan meals.
I’m not making any of this up.
These characters have elaborate backstories, family trees, love triangles, and feuds. There’s a whole wiki dedicated to tracking the lore. Kids are yelling “BALLERINA CAPPUCCINA!” in classrooms. Teachers are losing their minds. Parents are Googling “What is Italian brainrot” at 2 AM.
The phenomenon even spawned a massively popular Roblox game called “Steal a Brainrot” where players buy, steal, and collect these AI-generated characters. The game hit 25 million concurrent players (breaking Fortnite’s all-time record) and generates an estimated $11 million per month in revenue. Yes, a game about stealing AI slop characters is printing money.
The Business Model: One creator made his AI cat videos go from zero to tens of millions of views by just adding Italian brainrot characters. His May payday got “supercharged” because he jumped on the trend fast enough
The Numbers Don’t Lie (And They’re Terrifying)
A new study by Kapwing analyzed YouTube to figure out just how much AI slop has infected our feeds.
Here’s what they found:
The Global Slop Champions
Spain has the most subscribers to AI slop channels: 20.22 million people following these accounts. The top channel? “Imperio de jesus” with 5.87 million subscribers, featuring Jesus in interactive quizzes where he defeats Satan, the Grinch, and others. (Yes, really.)
South Korea has the most VIEWS: 8.45 billion views on trending AI slop channels. That’s 2.5x more than the US.
The Most-Subscribed Channel: A US-based Spanish-language channel called “Cuentos Facinantes” (they misspelled “Fascinantes”) with 5.95 million subscribers pumping out low-quality Dragon Ball videos.
The Most-Viewed Channel: “Bandar Apna Dost” from India with 2.07 BILLION views featuring “a realistic monkey in hilarious, dramatic, and heart-touching human-style situations.” Many videos are just variations of the same setup.
Show Me The Money
These channels aren’t just wasting everyone’s time—they’re getting PAID.
“Bandar Apna Dost” (India): Estimated $4.25 million per year in ad revenue
“Three Minutes Wisdom” (South Korea): Estimated $4.04 million per year
“Cuentos Facinantes” (US): Estimated $2.64 million per year
The business model is simple: AI can generate dozens of videos per day. Each video costs almost nothing to make. The weirder and more eye-catching, the better. Let the algorithm do the rest.
Your New User Experience Sucks
Kapwing created a brand new YouTube account to see what a fresh user experiences. Here’s what they found in the first 500 YouTube Shorts:
21% were AI-generated content
33% were “brainrot” videos (whether AI or not)
Translation: One out of every three videos on a fresh YouTube feed is complete garbage designed to melt your brain.
Is this what YouTube’s algorithm thinks you want? Or is this just what’s being uploaded in such massive quantities that it’s mathematically impossible to avoid?
Why Should Business Leaders Care?
“Okay Scott, this is all very amusing, but I run a serious business. Why do I care about AI bunnies and cappuccino-headed ballerinas?”
Three reasons:
1. The Trust Problem
Your customers are drowning in fake content. Every day, they’re getting better at assuming everything online might be bullshit.
When someone sees your legitimate company ad, your real testimonial, or your authentic product demo, they’re now thinking: “Is this AI slop?”
Trust is becoming the scarcest resource on the internet. If you haven’t already, you need to figure out how to prove you’re real:
Show behind-the-scenes content with real humans
Use actual customer names and verify them
Share your process, not just your output
2. The Attention Economy Just Got Worse
You’re not just competing with your competitors anymore. You’re competing with:
An Indian monkey channel making $4.25 million a year
A Spanish Jesus quiz show with 5.87 million subscribers
Infinite variations of animals on trampolines
These channels have figured out that weird beats good in the algorithm. They’re pumping out content at a scale you literally cannot match with human creators.
Your two options:
Make better content - More authentic, more valuable, more helpful than any AI could generate on its own.
Find the platforms AI hasn’t ruined yet - Which platforms still prioritize human creators (ahem…Substack)? Make these your primary platforms for business content.
3. Your Competition Might Be Using It (And Poisoning Their Brand)
Some businesses are jumping on the AI content train without thinking it through. They’re automating:
AI-generated customer testimonials (fake)
AI-generated product demos (misleading)
AI-generated “educational” content (surface-level garbage)
AI-generated social media posts (obviously soulless)
Example: Coca-Cola’s 2025 AI-generated Christmas ad got absolutely roasted online for being “generic, soulless, hollow, and filled with mistakes.”
Example: Vogue ran an ad featuring an AI model in their August print issue. Readers called it hollow and accused them of stealing jobs from real models and photographers.
The lesson: Using AI for content might save you money in the short term, but it can torch your brand reputation if your audience notices (and they will).
Where Does This End?
Let’s play fortune teller. Here are three possible futures:
Scenario 1: The Slop Apocalypse
Social media platforms become so flooded with AI-generated garbage that they become unusable. Real creators quit. Regular users leave. The platforms die.
Likelihood: 20%
Why it probably won’t happen: Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/TikTok print too much money. They’ll figure something out before they let their platforms implode.
Scenario 2: The Detection Wars
Platforms implement AI detection systems. Slop gets labeled or banned. Creators develop better AI that can’t be detected. Platforms improve their detection. The arms race continues forever.
Likelihood: 60%
Why it’s most likely: This is basically what’s happening with spam email and has been for 20+ years. The war never ends, it just evolves.
Scenario 3: The Great Fragmentation
The open internet becomes the slop zone. Real humans migrate to:
Paid platforms (where your subscription fee funds human moderation)
Verified-only communities (where you prove you’re a real person)
Private groups and Discord servers (where you know everyone)
Newsletters and blogs (old school human writing makes a comeback)
Likelihood: 20%
Why it might happen: We’re already seeing early signs. Substack is growing. Discord is massive. People are craving human connection in a sea of AI garbage.
My Actual Prediction
All three scenarios happen at once, just in different places.
The open internet becomes increasingly sloppy. Major platforms implement some detection and labeling (but never enough). And humans increasingly retreat to verified, human-only spaces where they know they’re interacting with real people.
The internet isn’t going away. But it’s splitting into two distinct zones:
The Slop Zone: Free, open, AI-generated, algorithm-driven, and increasingly unusable
The Human Zone: Paid, curated, verified, and where actual value gets created
Which zone do you want your business to live in?
The Uncomfortable Truth
Here’s what nobody wants to say out loud: AI slop is only getting better.
The bunnies on the trampoline fooled 230 million people, but they had glitches—bunnies morphing, disappearing, physics breaking. Six months from now, those glitches will be gone. A year from now, you won’t be able to tell the difference.
We’re at the point where:
AI can generate hyperrealistic images instantly
AI can create 25-second videos with minimal effort
AI voices sound completely human
The cost to generate slop is approaching zero
The potential payoff (millions in ad revenue) is massive
So no, AI slop isn’t going away. It’s going to get:
More realistic
More prolific
Harder to detect
More profitable for the people making it
The question isn’t “Will AI slop take over the internet?”
The question is: “What are you going to do about it?”
BOTTOM LINE
AI Slop is Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year for a reason. It’s not just a meme, it’s a fundamental shift in how content gets created and consumed online.
For business owners:
Build trust like your business depends on it (because it does)
Focus on authentic, human content that AI can’t replicate
Understand that you’re now competing with AI content farms making millions
Choose your platforms carefully (some will handle this better than others)
Consider whether your audience is ready to pay for human-verified content
For everyone else:
Assume everything you see might be fake until proven otherwise
Slow down before sharing (especially the cute animal videos)
Support real creators and real journalism
When something seems too perfect, it probably is
Remember that just because AI CAN make it doesn’t mean anyone SHOULD
The internet isn’t dying. But it’s definitely getting sloppier.
At least the bunnies were cute.
What’s your take? Have you been fooled by AI slop? Are you seeing it flood your feeds? Hit reply and let me know, I’m collecting war stories.
Next issue: Will AI take all our jobs? I’ll look at what history has taught us and make a prediction.
Stay smart,
-Scott
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