This spoke to me, and I love the idea of almost physiological impact: Making someone laugh so hard they cry, or making someone cry so hard they hurt, or making someone pee their pants out of sheer fright…
That said, I would caution against labeling any human-made entertainment as “slop” even if it is four quadrant, and even it does appear on a streaming service.
I guarantee there were a lot of creative people who worked really hard on it and their goal was almost definitely to elicit emotional impact, even if it’s an episode of Intercourse Island and that emotional impact is 😬. If I watch something and that emotional impact is lost on me, I try to concede “It’s not for me” and reserve further judgment. (Operative word being “try.”)
Ooooooohhhh Jon you're so right! THANK YOU for allowing me to clarify. An earlier version of this was using the very online term of "AI slop" and I edited it out, but in doing so, made my position unclear. (Irony of ironies with the thesis of this post lol) anyway, I edited that paragraph where I go hard on slop and try to re-articulate what I meant in a more surgical way.
Just to say— I totally agree with you. I like reality tv! I like many four quadrant movies! Making tv/film is SO HARD, that any time it actually gets done is always, to my mind, a miracle.
Taste is taste (it's not moral), and I don't have a value judgment of content made by humans AT ALL. What I do judge quite harshly is content made at the *expense of humans* in the name of money. Even AI, if it's being used in a way that doesn't hurt working class artists isn't all bad! And it isn't all slop! But the term "AI slop" in my mind is a low effort tool clumsily used by executives to make more money and put working class artists out of work.
Honestly, as I'm writing to you here, I still find this topic tricky! I don't think anything is ever all good or all bad. So it's something I'm clearly still wrestling with. I hope the thrust of my argument, that working class artists have POWER by what we can make people feel is the clearest takeaway. Thanks again for offering this, it was an important distinction I needed to see through!
EVERY WORD OF THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!! Wow. Thank you - for reminding us what tech bros will never figure out. people want to FEEL. there is no formula. there is how do we make people feel?
ahhhhh thank you so much! yes i have been thinking so much about this lately: formulas are cheap, principles are rich. the principle that we, as artists, are here to make people FEEL things (thanks octavia) is always a good strategy!
This spoke to me, and I love the idea of almost physiological impact: Making someone laugh so hard they cry, or making someone cry so hard they hurt, or making someone pee their pants out of sheer fright…
That said, I would caution against labeling any human-made entertainment as “slop” even if it is four quadrant, and even it does appear on a streaming service.
I guarantee there were a lot of creative people who worked really hard on it and their goal was almost definitely to elicit emotional impact, even if it’s an episode of Intercourse Island and that emotional impact is 😬. If I watch something and that emotional impact is lost on me, I try to concede “It’s not for me” and reserve further judgment. (Operative word being “try.”)
Ooooooohhhh Jon you're so right! THANK YOU for allowing me to clarify. An earlier version of this was using the very online term of "AI slop" and I edited it out, but in doing so, made my position unclear. (Irony of ironies with the thesis of this post lol) anyway, I edited that paragraph where I go hard on slop and try to re-articulate what I meant in a more surgical way.
Just to say— I totally agree with you. I like reality tv! I like many four quadrant movies! Making tv/film is SO HARD, that any time it actually gets done is always, to my mind, a miracle.
Taste is taste (it's not moral), and I don't have a value judgment of content made by humans AT ALL. What I do judge quite harshly is content made at the *expense of humans* in the name of money. Even AI, if it's being used in a way that doesn't hurt working class artists isn't all bad! And it isn't all slop! But the term "AI slop" in my mind is a low effort tool clumsily used by executives to make more money and put working class artists out of work.
Honestly, as I'm writing to you here, I still find this topic tricky! I don't think anything is ever all good or all bad. So it's something I'm clearly still wrestling with. I hope the thrust of my argument, that working class artists have POWER by what we can make people feel is the clearest takeaway. Thanks again for offering this, it was an important distinction I needed to see through!
EVERY WORD OF THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!! Wow. Thank you - for reminding us what tech bros will never figure out. people want to FEEL. there is no formula. there is how do we make people feel?
ahhhhh thank you so much! yes i have been thinking so much about this lately: formulas are cheap, principles are rich. the principle that we, as artists, are here to make people FEEL things (thanks octavia) is always a good strategy!