Merriam-Webster named "slop" its 2025 word of the year, defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” In its announcement, Merriam-Webster noted that, like "slime, sludge, and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch.” Similarly, The New York Times observed that slop, in graphic terms, “conjures images of heaps of unappetizing food being shoveled into troughs.”

Slop is an umbrella term that encompasses a vast range of terrible AI-generated content, from videos to news stories to ads to books to work reports. It can look real enough, but often seems just a bit off (and sometimes jarringly so). And it tends to feel (or even be) cheap, derivative, or recycled. These qualities of slop can leave us feeling cold, disengaged, and anxious. As such, Merriam-Webster’s choice reflects a deeper psychological crisis about how AI-generated content is reshaping our emotional landscape.

In her recent article, Laura Glitson (2025), a humanities scholar, wrote about “

© Psychology Today