AI Slop and Searching through social media

I did some Gemini queries about trends with social media internationally, and two stood out to me.  First, the use of AI to create marketing and other types of content is leading to people now actually wanting less polished, more authentic experiences.  Real, perfectly imperfect people in marketing and other posts are now seen as a sign of quality over AI slop.  I've seen some really cute, very polished AI-created video stories marketing certain products.   I'm amazed at just how polished they are, but it definitely just seems like fiction.  It is also interesting to me that the "long form" medical testimonial has now become its own genre for social media marketing.  Also easy to create through AI.  

I was also surprised and a little concerned to learn that people are now doing a lot of searching and researching all within social media platforms.  That just seems like such an unfortunate vote for the echo chamber of our social media algos.  All of this makes me just want to go outside away from my phone and computer.  Add in two factor authentication for everything now, and passwords requiring 15 characters, a number and a special character and I'm done.  Ugh.  Sadly, I would like to think that after an entire class on social media and web 2.0 I'd feel better about it.  I can see some advantages.  I see so many more disadvantages.  Sigh.  

Comments

  1. We're All Potatoes at HeartJuly 30, 2026 at 4:18 PM

    This reminded me of how, a few years ago, they implemented the fact-checking feature. It seemed like people started going to social media solely for news and weren't verifying their sources. I am glad when I do see them, especially when it's content that could be harmful.

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