TikTok Is Not The Reason We Watch 'Slop'; Burnout Is

Social media is often blamed for the lowbrow content and products many people enjoy, but it's not the real culprit.

- Erin Lowry

Social media is often the scapegoat for just about everything wrong in modern society. The latest thing it's getting blamed for is "slop". Originally, the term refers to the pervasiveness of low-quality artificial intelligence-generated content that is flooding social feeds, but it has turned into a catch-all for much of today's subpar products and content.

Laying all of this at the feet of social platforms is a mistake, though. Slop is not a new phenomenon. Each generation can point to moments in which the old guard decried that the latest media or gadget was brain-rotting sludge. In my lifetime, it's been everything from hip-hop and grunge music to the rise of reality television and violent video games, such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, to the BlackBerry—which was so addictive it was nicknamed Crackberry.

We should remember that when we read of society's incessant appetite for lowbrow content today. Now, has our consumption of it become more voracious because of online access? Yes. We can mindlessly scroll through our feeds, stream questionable podcasts and add fast fashion and services to our virtual carts with ease. But the culprit is not necessarily the likes of TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. It's burnout, but we've become so accepting of brushing excessive exhaustion off as a necessary evil for achieving success that it doesn't get enough blame.

A majority of millennials in the US, 66 per cent, according to a report from insurance firm Aflac, claim to feel moderate to high levels of the occupational phenomenon. Six years ago, a Gallup study found only 28 per cent of millennials reported feeling frequent or constant burnout at work.