Slop doesn’t slop itself.

Proof that slop doesn’t just come from the robots is this article from CNN: Tired of AI, people are committing to the analog lifestyle in 2026. Before you get your hackles up, I’m not about to defend technology but rather call out real human stupidity.

Ramishah Maruf writes, “Analogers are tired of doomscrolling and AI slop, or just frustrated that ChatGPT and other generative AI services are doing the thinking and creating for us.  ‘AI slop is quite fatiguing both in the actual action of viewing the content and the fact that it’s so repetitive, so unoriginal,’ Avriel Epps, an AI researcher and assistant professor at the University of California Riverside, said.”

If you’re choosing to use AI to think and create for you then knitting a sweater or writing a letter is not going to fix what’s really broken: a lack of initiative, poor discipline, and questionable judgment. AI is a tool where you choose whether to use it, how you use it, and what to do with the output.

The same is true about consuming digital content via websites, streams, video, etc. If you’re tired of seeing “slop” then the answer isn’t to live like it’s 1999, but to make better choices about how and where you’re spending your time and attention. In this particular story, it’s lazy writing (reporting?) to use robots as the scapegoat.

AI technology doesn’t think or create on its own unless a human asked it to. It doesn’t post or publish or stream without a human involved. Slop isn’t a technology problem, but one made by humans making really bad decisions, over and over again.

Slop is the result of humans actively deciding to take shortcuts and being okay with the shittastic results. If people genuinely put forth the effort to avoid digital distractions and actually create and make—not as a lifestyle hack, but simple decision making—then we’d have a much better place to live and work. Slop is deliberate, not inevitable.