Taste sounds like it is just cultural refinement but I think it’s a lot more than that. I think it’s the ability to judge for yourself. I’m actually reading Infinite Jest and I feel it’s a very challenging book on some level but it has a sharp wit to it and it has a futuristic science fiction feel that draws me in . But Wallace’s style is not for everyone. It literally is a matter of taste .
This is such a sharp take—and I’m here for the distinction between taste and slop in an era of abundance. But I find myself wondering if “slop” is more of a subjective category than we like to admit. What’s derivative or meaningless to one person might be treasured insight to someone else.
That’s why I think the real shift isn’t from “bad taste” to “good taste,” but from taste as the primary filter to something more structural: provenance and process lineage. In a world of infinite generative outputs, the question isn’t just “do I like this?” but “how was this made?”—and “can I trust the process that produced it?”
That said, I also think there’s a risk in overcorrecting. If we fetishize traceability, we might start favoring outputs that are well-audited over ones that are deeply felt. Creativity isn’t always linear or traceable. Some of the most meaningful works come from messy intuition, not transparent cognition.
So maybe the future isn’t taste vs trace—but taste informed by trace. Where emotional resonance and aesthetic intuition still matter, but are grounded in a richer awareness of how things come to be.
One person's "slop" can be another person's accelerationist propaganda too. Agreed that seeing "slop" is not like smelling an unpleasant smell, where the response to it is deeply entrenched in function. But it is more important to recognise that the function of "slop" on platforms and in the information space is deleterious. Flattening art to content measured only by engagement... if it's treasured, it's not "slop", and deciding whether some "slop" can be interesting to someone somewhere is besides the point in my opinion.
Slop isn’t just about aesthetic quality; it’s about the intent and context of production. When creativity gets industrialized purely for attention capture, it creates a kind of cultural pollution that affects everyone, regardless of individual taste. This has been discussed in the music industry for 30 years now.
So while my provenance suggestion still holds, your framing adds another layer - we need to trace not just how something was made, but why it was made and what systemic role it plays. In that regard, I think provenance and lineage are even more important ideas to consider so we can evaluate the source and intent for ourselves.
That actually becomes relevant for AI-generated images: they could be artistic expression in one context and engagement-farming slop in another, depending on the intent and distribution strategy behind it.
For me, the fix is knowing: from who and where did this “content/art” come from so I can use that to judge its value in addition to the thing itself.
I suppose the tricky thing is that knowing what's out there isn't enough, you also need to know what you *really* want (rather than jumping on the first good enough thing you see). Still, it's an interesting problem that I suspect is soluble in one form or another.
90% of everything is crap (Sturgeon's Law)
This is true no matter how much of everything there is.
What changes is how much filtering we want to do and to whom we will delegate it.
Taste sounds like it is just cultural refinement but I think it’s a lot more than that. I think it’s the ability to judge for yourself. I’m actually reading Infinite Jest and I feel it’s a very challenging book on some level but it has a sharp wit to it and it has a futuristic science fiction feel that draws me in . But Wallace’s style is not for everyone. It literally is a matter of taste .
This is such a sharp take—and I’m here for the distinction between taste and slop in an era of abundance. But I find myself wondering if “slop” is more of a subjective category than we like to admit. What’s derivative or meaningless to one person might be treasured insight to someone else.
That’s why I think the real shift isn’t from “bad taste” to “good taste,” but from taste as the primary filter to something more structural: provenance and process lineage. In a world of infinite generative outputs, the question isn’t just “do I like this?” but “how was this made?”—and “can I trust the process that produced it?”
That said, I also think there’s a risk in overcorrecting. If we fetishize traceability, we might start favoring outputs that are well-audited over ones that are deeply felt. Creativity isn’t always linear or traceable. Some of the most meaningful works come from messy intuition, not transparent cognition.
So maybe the future isn’t taste vs trace—but taste informed by trace. Where emotional resonance and aesthetic intuition still matter, but are grounded in a richer awareness of how things come to be.
One person's "slop" can be another person's accelerationist propaganda too. Agreed that seeing "slop" is not like smelling an unpleasant smell, where the response to it is deeply entrenched in function. But it is more important to recognise that the function of "slop" on platforms and in the information space is deleterious. Flattening art to content measured only by engagement... if it's treasured, it's not "slop", and deciding whether some "slop" can be interesting to someone somewhere is besides the point in my opinion.
Maybe we’re in violent agreement here?
Slop isn’t just about aesthetic quality; it’s about the intent and context of production. When creativity gets industrialized purely for attention capture, it creates a kind of cultural pollution that affects everyone, regardless of individual taste. This has been discussed in the music industry for 30 years now.
So while my provenance suggestion still holds, your framing adds another layer - we need to trace not just how something was made, but why it was made and what systemic role it plays. In that regard, I think provenance and lineage are even more important ideas to consider so we can evaluate the source and intent for ourselves.
That actually becomes relevant for AI-generated images: they could be artistic expression in one context and engagement-farming slop in another, depending on the intent and distribution strategy behind it.
For me, the fix is knowing: from who and where did this “content/art” come from so I can use that to judge its value in addition to the thing itself.
Yes indeed! Thanks for adding such detail.
sounds like you described the need for a new kind of search engine an order of magnitude more refined than ever before. Huge opportunity.
I suppose the tricky thing is that knowing what's out there isn't enough, you also need to know what you *really* want (rather than jumping on the first good enough thing you see). Still, it's an interesting problem that I suspect is soluble in one form or another.