Degenerative AI: AI slop, brainrot, and the gimmick of generative culture

In this short piece, we theorise pervasive products and practices associated with generative artificial intelligence – particularly those often described as ‘slop’ and ‘brainrot’ – as a genre or style of digital content often produced with automated technologies and as ways of being and feeling that are linked with their consumption. In so doing, we explore their ambivalent relationship with the notions of deficiency and excess. By applying the theory of the gimmick to these stigmatised outputs and practices, we conceptualise the cultural form of brainrot and slop as an overrated device that works both ‘too little’ through labour-saving ‘tricks’ and deskilling, and ‘too hard’ through strained algorithmic efforts to capture attention. As such, we argue that AI slop and brainrot expose the contradictions of cultural production and consumption in ‘too late capitalism’, with common narratives and imaginaries surrounding the terms emerging from, and responding to, a deep sense of ‘suspicion’ about their deceptive, wasteful, and illegitimate inner workings. In exploring whether there may be critical potential in those genres and experiences assumed to be inherently unproductive and invariably degenerative, we also question why so many find them so disgusting and yet weirdly captivating.