There’s an uncomfortable experiment you can run right now: open any feed and scroll for thirty seconds. Notice how many things sound exactly the same. The same kind of hook, the same cadence of sentences, the same music, the same face saying the same thing with a different filter. All correct. All competent. And all interchangeable.
That has a name. Joe Burns called it the Sloppening: the moment content gets so optimized that it loses its soul. And it interests me a lot, because it isn’t a matter of taste or an old person’s complaint, it’s a signal of where culture goes when everyone chases the same thing with the same tools.
I’ll give it to you in one line and then take it apart: the Sloppening is what happens when people ask the machine and the algorithm not just for the form, but for the judgment too, and of judgment they understand nothing.
In short (TL;DR)
- The Sloppening is the moment everything sounds and looks the same because it’s been optimized until it loses its soul. Competent, correct, interchangeable.
- AI didn’t invent it. We’ve had decades of empty human content made by formula; AI only makes it cheaper and multiplies it toward the mean.
- It happens because people hand the machine and the algorithm the part that was theirs: what to say and where from. And both drift to the mean, which sounds like everyone.
- You don’t get out by consuming or producing less, you get out with what the algorithm doesn’t give you: a thesis of your own, the specificity of your life, and judgment to choose.
- Optimizing isn’t bad; optimizing without judgment is. The form gets polished; the substance isn’t negotiated with the machine.
What the Sloppening is (and isn’t)
The Sloppening isn’t that there’s bad content, there always was. It’s that there’s optimal content, and all the optimal looks alike. When thousands of people use the same tools to chase the same metric, they converge. The hook that works best, the structure that retains most, the aesthetic that pleases most: everything pushes toward a single point, and that point is the mean.
The key is that it isn’t a problem of quality, it’s of taste. These pieces are usually well made. Good rhythm, good image, good editing. What they don’t have is anyone inside. Nobody who has seen something, who takes a side, who speaks from a specific place. They’re perfect forms wrapping an emptiness, and the emptiness shows even when you can’t point to it.
Kyle Chayka studies it in Filterworld: how algorithms, by always rewarding what works, flatten culture toward a global average taste. The trendy café in Tokyo, Berlin and Mexico City look alike because all three optimize for the same thing. With content it’s the same, only faster.
AI didn’t invent it, it accelerated it
It’s tempting to blame AI for all of it, and it’s a mistake, because it makes you think the problem is the tool. Slop existed long before. Listicles, SEO content, by-the-book hooks, carbon-copy threads: we’ve spent years producing optimized emptiness, by hand, with no machine’s help.
What AI changes is the scale and the cost. Because it’s trained on the average of everything that exists, it drifts to the mean by nature, and now it can produce that mean at a speed and volume that were impossible before. You ask it to write “a good post about X” and it gives you the statistical version of how that’s been said a thousand times. Correct, competent, and without you.
That’s why the Sloppening isn’t humans versus machines. It’s judgment versus its absence. A human without judgment produces slop; an AI well directed by someone with judgment can produce things with a soul. The line isn’t between handmade and AI-made, it’s between what has someone inside and what doesn’t.
Why we fall into it without meaning to
Nobody sets out to add to the noise. We fall in for three reasons worth seeing, because they’re the ones to switch off.
The first is fear. Copying what already works feels safe; making something of your own feels risky. So, without deciding it, we pick the proven hook, the usual structure, what went well for someone else. And the safe thing, when everyone does it, is exactly what melts into the crowd.
The second is comfort. Thinking the substance is hard work; optimizing the form is easy and now, with AI, almost free. So we put all the energy into polishing the surface and none into having something to say, and out comes a piece that’s flawless on the outside and hollow inside.
The third is the metric. If you only watch what shows (reach, likes), you end up producing for that, and for that what works is what already worked. The visible metric drags you to the mean without you noticing, because the mean is, by definition, what most pleases most people.
How to get out of the Sloppening
Getting out isn’t stopping optimizing or giving up AI. It’s putting judgment back where you’d handed it off. Three concrete ways.
Decide the substance before you touch the form. Before optimizing anything, answer what you have to say that everyone isn’t already saying. Your thesis, your angle, what you’ve seen from your spot. If you set that part, the form can be polished all you want without the piece turning generic. If you put that part in the machine’s or the algorithm’s hands, you’ve already lost.
Put in your specificity. What can’t be averaged is your concrete experience: what you lived, what you learned getting it wrong, the strange detail only you have. Slop is generic because it belongs to everyone; your life is the one thing that belongs to no one else. The more specific and more yours, the less room you leave the noise to swallow you.
Edit out what sounds like everyone. The soul often shows up in the cutting. Remove the automatic connector, the marketing phrase, the by-the-book hook, the too-smooth cadence. What’s left when you clean out everything interchangeable is your voice. Editing isn’t polishing so it shines more; it’s scraping off the generic until what’s yours shows through.
Where to start this week
Take your last piece and ask it an honest question: if I removed your name and your face, would anyone know it’s yours? Or could it be from anyone using the same tools?
Not to punish yourself, but to see how much of what you make sets you apart and how much melts into the crowd. And then, in the next one, start from the substance: write in four lines what you want to say that nobody says, put in a detail that’s only yours, and edit out everything that sounds by-the-book.
You won’t fix the culture on your own. But you can stop adding to the noise, which is already a lot. Make one piece this week that only you could have made, and tell me whether it doesn’t stand out among the thousand that sound the same.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Sloppening?
It’s the cultural moment when everything starts to sound and look the same because it’s been optimized until it loses its soul. Same kind of hook, same cadence, same phrases, same aesthetic. Competent, correct content, but interchangeable and with nobody inside. The term was popularized by Joe Burns, and it describes what happens when people ask the machine and the algorithm not just for the form, but for the judgment too.
Is it AI’s fault?
AI accelerates it, but it didn’t invent it. We’ve had decades of empty human content, optimized for the algorithm, made by formula. What AI does is make that mean-tending production cheaper and multiply it, because it’s trained on the average of what exists and drifts to the mean. The fault isn’t the tool, it’s handing it the part that was yours: what to say and where from.
How do I keep my content from sounding like everyone else’s?
Put in what the machine and the algorithm don’t have: a thesis of your own, the specificity of your experience, and the judgment to choose. Before optimizing the form, decide the substance: what you’ve seen that nobody is saying. And edit out the generic, the phrase that sounds like everyone, the by-the-book hook. Sounding different isn’t a trick of form, it’s having something to say and daring to say it your way.
Is optimizing bad?
No, optimizing without judgment is what’s bad. Adjusting the form so it’s understood and lands is healthy; the problem is optimizing until nothing is left that isn’t optimal, and what’s optimal for the algorithm is always the same. When optimization decides the substance too, it pushes you to the mean. The form can be polished all you want, as long as you set the substance yourself and don’t negotiate it with the machine.
Before you go
The whole idea fits in one line: in a world where everything is optimized toward the mean, the only thing that sets you apart is what can’t be averaged, and that you put in or nobody does.
The Sloppening isn’t fought with nostalgia or by giving up the tools. It’s fought with judgment: having something to say, putting in your concrete life, and cutting everything that sounds like anyone. This week, make one piece only you could sign. And tell me how it feels to stop adding to the noise and start saying something.
References
- Joe Burns, the term The Sloppening — content optimized until it loses its soul, what happens when the machine is asked for the judgment too.
- Kyle Chayka, Filterworld (2024) — how algorithms, by always rewarding what works, flatten culture toward an average taste.
Reading recommendations
If you want to pull the thread of why everything converges and how to really differentiate, three books:
- Kyle Chayka, Filterworld. How the algorithm homogenizes taste and flattens culture toward the mean.
- W. David Marx, Status and Culture. Why things converge and how cultural differentiation actually works.
- Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty. On the aesthetic of the smooth and polished that has taken over everything, and what gets lost along the way.
* The book links use my Amazon affiliate: if you buy through them, I earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.