First off- FUCK “CONTENT”- I even made a song about it with a video made in Nightmare Puppeteer the animation making tool I programmed myself. (Video is age restricted for some reason so here’s the song)
I’ve hated the term “content” since I first saw it used by Youtube way back when in 2005/2006 with “User generated content”. My stance has always been that is demeans and devalues art that people like myself create. Its like I MAKE FILMS BITCH not “video content” fuck yer content! I make music not “audio content” I write books not “textual content” etc etc
BUT I imagine one of the reasons the term flourished was because so much SLOP was being created- it wasn’t art created by people who loved and appreciated the art form it was just SLOP created in an attempt to become “popular” to chase $- people creating videos of anything the algorithm steered them towards with the sweet nectar of views and engagement that eventually led to $
They had to call it “content” because it couldn’t be called anything else- vlogs? gameplay videos? Remixes of remixes of meme’s? Opening boxes? Reviewing people opening boxes? Its all SLOP.
And now the ultimate slop generators are here- LLM’s and “AI” tools to create infinite SLOP or “content” for humans conditioned to require infinite streams of slop “content” to feed their insatiable desire for entertainment(distractions).
I reckon these advanced slop generators will replace the large majority of the foolish humans who have chosen to make “content creation” their thing. All these people have done is swallow and regurgitate- they’ve never created anything original- they don’t love the art- they don’t love the craft they just do whatever they have to do to do what the algo’s want- and in the time of these powerful LLM’s/”AI” tools that means these people are no longer needed-
Though some of these people might be good at the craft technically they are not using the craft to express their unique story- they are not using the tools to express the passion of their human soul- most of them sold or lost contact with their spirit and soul long ago. So even if they desire to do this now its like trying to squeeze water out of a stone.
They sold out their soul for “content” and now all they can spew is SLOP “content” that “AI’s” can spew faster/cheaper forever in anyway on any topic in any style etc etc.
What got me to write this? I’m not thinking about this shit all the time- It’s slop so I could care less about it- its like the junk piles I saw on the side of the road in California- I could care less about it-
I got writing this after playing with Google’s new NotebookLM for a few minutes. It has a feature that lets you upload text or even audio documents and it will generate a “Podcast” episode with two people discussing the documents.
I used it on three of the books I’ve written. You can hear the stuff here.
“Tips for the Uberector”
“Hella Bad Boys”
“Untitled strange book”
So these podcasts are very very close- I’d say close enough even in this early form to be indistinguishable from most human based podcasts made up of generic people who no special skills, intelligence, knowledge, or talent having a boring snarky chat about shit they don’t care about.
BUT mostly because of the scourge of para-socialness people love this kind of shit.
And now yep- you no longer need to bribe a podcast to shill your stuff- you can just generate it yourself using tools like NotebookLM- now for the big podcasts its still about connections and who your agent/agency is etc so I don’t think you can bribe those- but anyway-
If you look at the “AI” landscape right now- look at image/video generation + the LLM stuff- push forward a little bit- and yes you have “AI” podcasters, “youtubers”, “streamers”, commenters etc- most all the slop peddlers will be replaced and the “AI” replacements that were trained on the slop “content” these people put out there-
“Content creators” will be decimated and they will only be able to blame themselves- they did what the algo’s wanted and chose to become another drone- the same as the other algo chasing drone with different meta-tags-
They are all the same 3d model with different textures and hair colors/styles but they are all the same- they operate in different genre’s but they are all essentially became the same base model- this is what the algo’s did to them-
So in that sense they’ve destroyed themselves by walking down this algorithm based path chasing the $- this is where it has lead them- to nowhere.
I could see this coming(not the AI but the death of the slop peddlers) from the very start of Youtube- if you didn’t know I was on Youtube since it started and was invited to several youtube/google events way back when-
I saw it coming because from the start there were people like me making things that existed before youtube “content” (which is just a name to cover the random slop people ended up making for engagement)
Very quickly the films and the like that were posted by artists like me were quickly pushed to the back of the stage by things like “Mr. Pregnant”
Now one might say- well films time was over- films are old and vlogs/”content” slop is new and people wanted new stuff and I would agree that it is half true- but I’ll get back to this-
The way I saw it coming was that I saw youtube as a stage- imagine its an open mic- at this open mic first up are people telling well crafted stories in a traditional way by people who were artists- then all of a sudden fifty Mr. Pregnant’s rush to the front of the stage making funny faces and fart noises- now the storytellers are pushed to the back- there’s endless Mr. Pregnant’s grabbing attention but making funnier and funnier faces and bigger and bigger fart noises(This is algo driven “content”)
The storytellers at the back have a few options- keep doing what they’re doing- speaking at a measured pace, not screaming- telling their well crafted stories and hope someone will hear them and/or listen OR they can become a “content” SLOP spewer and start doing what the other slop spewers are doing- the thumbnail faces, the clickbait game etc-
I chose to just keep doing what I’ve always done and/or what I felt like I should do and that was never dictated by what other people were doing and/or what the algo’s wanted me to do- so my work was drowned out and faded into obscurity and that is where it is now-
My work is obscure but it is original and uncompromising though-
Anyhow- I knew a day would come when people would get tired of the Mr. Pregnant’s or the grown men like Pewdiepie playing other peoples video games while screaming “RAPE” at the screen which spearheaded the para-social poison with a fake ass “Bro army”- these people never gave a shit about anything but engagement and $- they will never be and never were your “bro”
Shiiiiit I’m not your “bro” either- I’m not here to make friends I’m here to make works- if you enjoy them and find them interesting coo- if not I don’t care.
Same for the algo’s- my work isn’t guided by the algo’s and what they want to reward- fuck the algo’s- follow the algo’s and you become a soulless robot that will eventually be replaced by real “robots” and “AI”
I think it’s too late for the “content creators” and the fans of the “content” slop- the “creators” will mostly be replaced by “AI” tools and the fans are at such a decimated/demoralized state they will watch anything furthering the doom of the “content creators”.
The “content creators” will cry “support real creators” and the like but the slop spewers were never real creators- they were never artists so they will have to enjoy going to the dustbins of history. A lot of them probably made a bunch of $ in their slop spewing career so those will go on as “success” stories to sucker more into following the doomed path-
But the gates will close- “AI” will take over and that will be that-
Some might think this is some kind of “doomer” post but from my perspective it isn’t at all- from my perspective “content slop” was never any good for anybody except the corporations who promoted/curated it- so many billionaires and multi-millionaires were made through these content slop empires-
The sooner humans stop abandoning their spirit and find the true calling and voice in their soul the better- thats better for everyone- both artists and patrons/fans etc.
Patrons/fans will get high quality human soul-based works and shiiiit maybe the artists could even make a living again doing what they love?
Oh I said “Patron” which makes me think of Patreon- doing “what the fans want” is another path to doom- I’ve made a joke for awhile that if you are a creative and you make a Patreon account you’ll end up making Furry porn as thats where all the money is there- it is also half true I’d say-
A true artist doesn’t do what the “fans what” they do what their soul cries out to do- its not always what the “fans want” it rarely is probably BUT it is unique and novel- true human expression- something “AI” etc could never do-
You could train an “AI” on twenty years of a real artists work and it still wouldn’t be able to match the unpredictable novel output of a soul-driven artist.
A content slop “creator” though? YES the “AI” would far surpass that “creator” and be able to replicate/predict it all because “AI”/computers are MUCH better at running algo’s than humans are- they are much better than being computers than humans are.
I just saw a new “AI video editing” service that takes content slop and adds/modifies the videos according to “current trends” etc- this is what the slop peddlers have been doing manually for years- now its getting automated away and soon the slop peddlers will be automated away as well-
Its all good though- because real artists like me that are still standing will still be here- when all the Mr. Pregnants have left the stage if anyone wants to listen yeah I’m still on the stage telling stories.
BUT I’m not going to play other peoples videos games and scream and pretend to be your friend. Because none of that bullshit is good for anybody.
I don't see how it could replace "content creators." I think that's an optimistic take.
I think what will happen is probably worse. The "content creators" won't be replaced, they'll just become really good at getting AI to "hit" the algorithm. Instead of thousands of content people making soy face for thumbnails, it'll be consolidated into a few hundred or less "content creators" making super slop instead.
The companies making AI aren't interested in making content... there will be no money there for them compared to the money they can make selling subs to people who are chasing after becoming one of the new consolidated super slop creators... because those new super slop creators will be making beaucoup money and that's the dream baby.
You know how the legacy media is all.owmed by a small handful of.companies?
Same thing basically. That's the future I see.