Wonderful post by John Higgs which ranges from the Trump assassination attempt, the Olympics opening ceremony to “knobbing about”. Higgs makes the best analysis of the Olympic opening ceremony I’ve seen, dscribing it as “slop”, which he defines as
The ceremony was a lot like modern digital culture. We are bombarded with seemingly unconnected ideas and images until the overwhelming reaction they provoke is exhaustion. Recently, this endless outpouring of meaningless content has been given the name ‘slop’, a naming I like very much. Slop is particularly associated with AI used to game platform metrics – such as AI music on Spotify playlists or bots talking to bots on social media – [but it is also used] for uninspired corporate content that artistically does not need to exist.
Higgs goes on to try to define the “non-slop” by linking it to his childhood experiences of “knobbing about” with his friends and coming to the conclusion that it’s the moments of “non-slop” that truly matter.