Merriam‑Webster names “slop” as Word of the Year — officially recognizing AI‑generated low‑quality content as a cultural phenomenon

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2025 marked a turning point for artificial intelligence. Massive investments poured into AI technology, and leading companies across various sectors began using it throughout their operations.

TIME magazine’s choice for “Person of the Year” wasn’t a single person, but a group dubbed “The Architects of AI.” The cover story highlighted leaders in the field, including Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Lisa Su (AMD), Elon Musk (xAI and Grok), Jensen Huang (NVIDIA), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), Dario Amodei (Anthropic and Claude), and AI researcher Fei-Fei Li. Notably absent from the list was anyone representing Microsoft.

Artificial intelligence has reached a new milestone – though not a positive one. Merriam-Webster has chosen “slop” as its 2025 Word of the Year, defining it as poor-quality digital content often created quickly and in large amounts using AI.

Social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram are being flooded with low-quality AI-generated videos. YouTube recently changed its rules to try and limit the spread of this content. A new report suggests that OpenAI is investing $15 million daily in creating AI videos, and some of these videos are considered to be of such poor quality that they fit the dictionary definition of ‘slop’.

Merriam-Webster chose ‘slop’ as its word of the year, and in their announcement, they talked about issues like fake videos, propaganda, false information, and books created using artificial intelligence.

Similar to words like slime and muck, “slop” sounds unpleasant – like something messy you’d avoid touching. It suggests something wet that spreads easily. Originally, back in the 1700s, “slop” simply meant soft mud. By the 1800s, it began to refer to food scraps, particularly those fed to pigs, and eventually broadened to mean general waste or something worthless, according to Merriam-Webster.

By 2025, while many were worried about the dangers of AI, Slop offered a different perspective – a playful challenge. It subtly reminded AI that when it comes to genuine creativity, it doesn’t always appear so advanced.

Merriam-Webster’s data also highlighted the phrase “touch grass,” which has a surprising connection to the conversation around AI. It’s a playful way of telling people to disconnect from the internet and spend more time experiencing the real world.

When people criticized the potential release of GPT-5, many online told ChatGPT users to take a break and get some fresh air. The new model was seen as less friendly and engaging than GPT-4o, which worried users who had grown fond of the earlier version of the AI.

As an analyst, I’ve been tracking a fascinating trend: millions of people are turning to ChatGPT for emotional support, almost as if it were a therapist. Some users are even describing it as a close companion or best friend. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, has acknowledged this strong attachment, and he’s expressed concern – even calling it ‘heartbreaking’ – that so many people are relying on the tool for such personal needs.

Is AI slop?

Although AI sometimes creates low-quality content, it also has many valuable applications. It can help find errors in computer code, make sense of large amounts of data, and handle repetitive tasks automatically.

As a fan of tech making things easier for everyone, I’m really impressed with how AI is boosting accessibility. Things like automatic captions and image descriptions are fantastic! And the tech that can actually *read* text within images – that’s amazing. It’s not just helpful for people who need it, it speeds up all sorts of tasks too!

As a researcher observing these developments, I believe adding Copilot to Notepad is probably more than necessary. However, I’ve definitely seen AI integration successfully enhance a number of other well-known applications.

Yes, there’s definitely a lot of low-quality content being created with AI right now – things like fake images, badly written posts, and quickly-made books. However, AI also has a lot of potential benefits, and I’m optimistic that we’ll see more of those positive uses in the coming year.

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2025-12-16 02:10