The Age of Slop
How do we survive the constant amplification of nonsense?
This is the best and worst time to be born an information junkie.
A hundred years ago, if I had been fortunate enough, I might have purchased a collection of World Book Encyclopedias from a traveling salesman—probably on a payment plan as encyclopedias were one of the first broadly available consumer goods that could be purchased on credit (a practice dating back to just after the Civil War).
In such an age I might have woken before dawn, completed my chores and made coffee just as the sun started to burn off the winter frost, then sat at the kitchen table reading from my encyclopedia before the day demanded more from me. Cracking the volume I might have wondered, “Let’s see what wonders the letter ‘Q’ has to offer us today.” The encyclopedia, as I would have understood it, contained snippets of nearly all the world’s knowledge and by learning what was in those volumes, I could have known more than Dr. Faustus and it wouldn’t even have cost me my eternal soul.
But it’s not a hundred years ago, and instead I have to deal with an information stream that is fragmented, siloed, constantly spinning, impossible to wrap one’s head around, and turning us all into angry, bitter mobs who live in different realities. This is the very worst version of Robert Anton Wilson’s fiction come true.
As a nation we are so divided, and have allowed politics to so thoroughly seep into every facet of our lived lives, that this year there are even two Super Bowl Half Time shows—one for those who want to see the shallow pandering of “Queer” representation by a guy in a dress who constantly disparages the country that has made him rich without even bothering to learn its language (one more example of why it’s time to let Puerto Rico have its independence), and another halftime show headlined by an aging rockstar whose most notorious artistic statement in recent years has been shooting rounds of ammunition into stacks of Bud Light. Oh, joy. I choose neither.
As I dipped my toe into the shark infested waters of “The Feed” yesterday morning, the story that dominated was “DONALD TRUMP POSTS RACIST MEME OF THE OBAMAS,” along with the cartoon image of Barack and Michelle as apes. Oh, boy, at first glance this certainly does not look good. I support the President, but sometimes I just wish he’d be more “presidential” and times like these are challenging.
But I’ve seen enough fake outrage in the past month alone to know that the headline is seldom the story, so without caring about this story at all I know I’ve got to do some digging to figure out what actually happened.
For those fortunate enough to be living under a rock, here seems to be what happened: On Thursday Trump’s account on TruthSocial shared a 62 second video about vulnerabilities in voting machines used in the 2020 election. At the end of the clip, the video transitioned to an animated segment satirizing “The Lion King” which showed former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama as cartoon apes. Then, immediately, the video switched back to the clip about voting fraud.
Once the Trump camp was made aware of the video, they pulled it down. Trump himself condemned the clip but also asserted that it was a mistake made by a staffer. He was not aware that “the Lion King” clip was at the end. Of course if you watch the “offensive” clip in question, you’ll see that it’s more AI generated slop and that Democratic politicians are superimposed on various animals and Trump is, of course, the lion as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays. In the way of political commentary, it’s not deep or insightful, but in the age of slop it has gone viral.
It’s unfortunate that the clip received more attention because of this latest “controversy,” but anyone not beset by full blown Trump Derangement Syndrome can clearly see what happened. The clip is a screen recording of an X video captured on a mobile phone, and on X’s mobile video feed the next video auto-starts before the video you’re watching finishes. If you want to return to the initial video you simply swipe back up which is clearly what happened here. This is the “infinite scroll” format that all social media platforms now use thanks to the popularity of TikTok and that this model was created by Demons In Hell is incontrovertible, scientific fact.
The mistake that was made here is obvious, but since I’m a white GenX male I am not allowed to say such things. So here, for those who need it, is a black Gen Z female to explain it to you. Take it away Amala:
But, of course, this is not a version of the story you’re willing to hear if your personalized version of “The Feed” is tuned to leftist outrage. Here is just a sampling of how the story has been covered in the last 24 hours (summary compliments of Grok and edited by me):
The (post) has been framed overwhelmingly as a racist depiction, drawing on a long historical trope of dehumanizing Black people by comparing them to apes/monkeys — a stereotype rooted in centuries of racism, slavery justification, and segregation-era propaganda.
The incident has been covered in: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, BBC, Reuters, The Guardian and others.
A sampling of statements about the incident includes these:
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries: “Fuck Donald Trump” in response to the “racist Truth Social video post,” describing it as “racist and bigoted.”(Source: MSNBC article by Charles F. Coleman Jr., February 6, 2026; also covered in The Washington Post.)
Color of Change: “This is white supremacy expressed from the Oval Office.” They argued Trump “resents what the Obamas represent: a Black family that is accomplished, respected, and widely admired,” calling him a promoter of views that “contradict the worldview he has spent years promoting—from birther conspiracies... to now circulating imagery rooted in centuries of racial dehumanization used to justify slavery, lynching, and violence.” (Sources: Color of Change Facebook post, February 6, 2026; quoted in CNN, PBS NewsHour, and The Guardian articles on February 6-7, 2026.)
Devout anti-white Racist and former MSNBC host Joy Reid stated: “Donald Trump... is racist?! Our hater in chief recently made a disturbing post depicting former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Classy.” (Sources: The Joy Reid Show LIVE! on Facebook and YouTube, February 6, 2026; also on her website joyannreid.com and X post by @June4th.)
“Journalist” Don Lemon: “That is just plain old racism. Karoline Leavitt had the nerve to say this is just a joke. Are you out of your fucking mind Karoline Leavitt? No, no, no. There is nothing funny about depicting anybody as apes or monkeys. It is revolting. So Karoline Leavitt, fuck off.” (Sources: Don Lemon’s Facebook videos and reels, February 6-7, 2026; National Today article, February 7, 2026)
If such fake outrage remained in the margins, spoken by those hungry for likes and clicks to maintain their insatiable egos as their viewership and relevance fades, then the rest of us could easily go about our days and ignore the noise. The problem, however, is that these echo chambers have infected our friends, family, and co-workers and puts the rest of us who don’t hop on the outrage bandwagon in uncomfortable positions.
Among the many outrage posts I’ve tried to step around in the last 36 hours, here is one that stood out:
“If you stand by and still support Donald Trump after the racist garbage that he posted today, please delete me as a friend on FB and in real life. Please and thank you.”
This post comes from someone I have known since I was four, an old dear friend and distant cousin who I rarely see as an adult but who I have deep and abiding affection for. For years we sat on the same side of the political aisle and our interactions on social media were warm and affable. But I decided to change seats so now here we are.
Do I take my friend at their word? Should I unfriend them? Should I let this person that I have known since 1984, someone who stood up to the bullies for me on the playground when they harassed me, someone I genuinely care about, do I take them at their word and unfriend them because a junior staffer at the White House made a dumb mistake when posting a meme? No, I am not going to do that and hopefully my friend will simmer down and realize that they don’t want that either, but increasingly this unfollowing and unfriending is becoming the norm.
Our information silos online are reshaping our real communities in the material world, and for many tolerating even moderate differences of political opinions are now lines in the sand.
In my own life, I have talked too much about the dozens of people who have unfriended and blocked me over the past year for expressing my political beliefs that no longer align with theirs. What I have not been honest with you about is that those dozens of people include a few people I really loved—a college roommate who had been a good friend since 1996, and a member of my nuclear family who was, until the election in 2024, my closest family member.
The hurt and betrayal that I feel from these people is deep, and none of those who have walked away will even do me the decency of returning a text message to try to talk it out. I am now poisonous to them for simply expressing views that even a decade ago would have made me a centrist Democrat.
That is how deep and broken we’ve allowed our relationships to become over politics that we, ultimately, have virtually no control over.
I don’t know what the solution to any of this is, and I certainly don’t believe for a moment that I am immune to the faux outrage and constant amplification of slop that the internet has become.
For now, I am trying to turn down the noise, to commit to not argue with friends and loved ones online, and to turn to Substack and my own private writing to try to work out what I think and why. To ramble in long form rather than to flame out and burn bridges via social media seems like the best of limited options here. To be outrageous and inflammatory would probably get more eyes on my work, but I just have no interest in that. (For anyone who is reading with views different than mine, thank you. You are my ideal audience).
Without a solution, all I know how to do now is turn off the computer and go sit in the sun for a few hours to read a novel as my dogs frolic and play around me.
This era of online connection and the isolation that it breeds concerns and depresses me, but I’ve had my say for today, I don’t care about Donald Trump and his memes right now, I don’t care about outrage real and empty, and the best of all available options for the rest of the weekend seems to be to turn off the noise and go literally touch grass.
I hope you might do the same, but whatever you do stay safe out there—and thank you for being here.