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In a year dominated by prosperity Amnesty International Industry and a deluge of digital creativity, Merriam-Webster has crowned “Slop” its title 2025 word of the year. This four-letter word acts as a referee on the sprawling glut of low-quality content now clogging screens. Social media feeds everywhere.
Originally used in the 18th century to refer to soft clay and in the 19th century to describe food scraps or garbage, the word “slop” now takes on a 21st century twist. Merriam-Webster defines it as “low-quality digital content typically mass-produced by artificial intelligence.”
Think silly videos, flawed ads, Fake news This almost fools you, the bad books written by AI and, yes, talking animals. And now luxury brands like Valentino are as well Push “dirty” ads..
“Like muck, sludge, and slime, dirt has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch,” Merriam-Webster quipped in its ad, capturing a widespread cultural mood that’s part confusion, part exasperation with today’s deteriorating AI landscape.
Read also: $1 Billion for AI Slop? Why Disney is spending big and bringing their iconic characters to OpenAI
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2025: a year defined by the deluge of artificial intelligence content
Technology platforms, both large and small, have grappled with increasing… Generative artificial intelligence Content in 2025, from Deep fakes For clickbait style creatives that prioritize volume over value. wave Back up ramp It reflects not only how easy it is to create content at scale, but also how little that content often resonates meaningfully with human audiences.
Merriam-Webster editors say the word stands out because it embodies a cultural trend and collective sentiment — one that’s less about fear of technology and more about mockery of how mindless content spreads.
Other words that spelled 2025
While slopestyle grabbed the top spot, Merriam-Webster also highlighted other terms that defined the letter of the year, including:
- 67a viral slang term born on social media, delighting Generation Alpha with the energy of an inside joke.
- Performativeused to refer to behavior performed for show or clout rather than substance.
- Touch the grassA phrase urging people to disconnect from digital obsession and reconnect with the real world.
- Jerrimander and Customs tariffWords driven by political and economic headlines.
These picks show how much public interest there is in 2025, from internet culture to politics to how we live with technology.
A global linguistic snapshot of the past year
Merriam-Webster isn’t the only publication influencing the language of the year. Here are some other words for 2025:
- Oxford University Press to choose “The taste of anger“, to highlight content designed to spark outrage and engagement online.
- Macquarie Dictionary In Australia, he highlighted “Back up ramp“, which is similar to Merriam-Webster’s theme of digital chaos.
- Cambridge Dictionary to choose “dissociable“, focusing on one-sided relationships with online personalities and AI-powered chatbots.
- Dictionary.com “Embrace the colloquial term”67“, a ubiquitous and almost meaningless expression that captures a segment of youth culture.
Together, these choices reflect a generation exhausted, fascinated, and frustrated with the digital world.
Why does it matter?
For the tech-obsessed crowd, “slop” isn’t just a funny word; It’s a symptom of deeper trends in AI deployment, content moderation, and cultural awareness. Our CNET experts have covered AI decline in depth, from Determine what it is And how it appears On the internet And in Commercialsfor analysis How to turn social media into a wasteland.
As auto-generating tools become more common and easier to use, the signal-to-noise ratio in digital spaces will become more apparent and important. Whether you’re building apps, curating feeds, or trying to avoid the next wave of meaningless memes, the Word of the Year 2025 is a reminder that quality still matters and sometimes language itself can make that abundantly clear.
Read more: Why was Time magazine named “AI Person of the Year”?