Entertainment: the funny cat videos on your screen, the video tutorials on how to bake a cake, the edits created to show off some sick montage that a kid in 2012 managed to pull off. These are all examples of the “Golden Age” of the early Internet when YouTube took its first steps; before Facebook became specifically for old people. Some readers here might remember those days, I certainly do – whenever I was a wee lad waiting for the next upload of a Minecraft series. But that charm has been lost, drowned within the ideas of business and profits.

I will hold no bars here – no restrictions. Time and time again, it’s been shown that the entertainment industry, not just the internet, has fallen into a simple mindset. There are no more revolutionary ideas. There was Toy Story, and then it became Lightyear. This little Op-Ed isn’t meant to just be my opinion but to open your eyes to the pure Slop you’ve been consuming. Even Slop, with a budget of 20 million, is still Slop.

When it comes to animation the first thing that comes to mind is the Disney of old: Little Mermaid, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, etc. You could also think of Computer Animation like Toy Story or Shrek. But as stated before, your precious Toy Story becomes Lightyear. Why is that? Well, multiple factors deal with the heavy topic of animation but the most common factor is money over creativity. As corporations expand they need to worry about worker pay and profit margins- which they boil down to sequels of financial success.

Thus, if the quality of movies is declining, then it should only be movies, right? Unfortunately, profits can be made elsewhere, including YouTube and the invention of Slop Content. As defined by Merriam’s Dictionary, Slop is, “food waste (such as garbage) fed to animals”. Therefore slop when applied to YouTube is what many people would call content farms where a channel is dedicated to pumping out as much low-quality content as possible to maximize profits. It’s a genuine business, as there are hundreds of channels focused on eye-catching thumbnails or regurgitating the same news twenty different others already did. However, some channels genuinely care, but fail to break out of the cycle due to their lower popularity. A few examples are PyrocynicalLIVE, Moist Critical, and any Nintendo YouTuber*.
*Almost any Nintendo Youtuber

But even then those are niche examples without looking at the larger scope, and once investigated there are barely any differences in quality from the mass media. Ollie Johnson stated it beautifully, “I very often see people just consuming things with no real purpose or thought or questioning of what they are watching, every time I see it a great force of confusion and absurdity falls upon me“ (Ollie Johnson, Article). The ideals of consumerism have become more popular than true quality, with many examples. In most recent memory, it is Lunchly or Jake Paul’s Prime, as both are products truly aimed at profits rather than quality products for fans to consume.

Quality vs. Quantity is a tricky thing to balance. If you lean too far into profits, it becomes slop, but if you lean too far into quality it will barely come out as a profit. Entertainment as a medium for pass-time is as old as time itself and requires little intelligence to enjoy. However, breaking through the standards and creating something your fans or moviegoers, video game enthusiasts, or music listeners enjoy? That is a true miracle. Every company should strive for if they want to return to form and become the golden age once again. Would you rather have endless slop content or one prized movie that will leave a lasting impact on you?

Want a different perspective? Read Ollie Johnson’s article about the personal side, rather than the content side of entertainment: Article.