Pop Slop and Parasocial Playthings
danah boyd, arguing that Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media
users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated.[...]
we need to stop presuming that these tools are "social media" and begin recognizing that they are now "parasocial media." Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.
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parasocial relationships are a type of trickster. Attending to parasocial connections may be pleasurable for consumers, but doing so does not strengthen the collective social fabric. It is possible to experience loneliness despite spending hours emotionally engaged with others' dramas if those interactions are not reciprocated. Even those who are producing content for the parasocial world struggle to navigate the contorted forms of intimacy that abound (Glatt, 2024). Friendship requires reciprocity and compassion. Parasocial media creates the conditions for people to objectify one another at a distance as mediatized objects, helping realize the different layers of toxicity that social media scholars document (Bailey, 2022; Banet-Weiser & Miltner, 2016; Suarez Estrada etal., 2022; Wong etal., 2025). So when people opt to devote their energy to tracking the latest TikTok star or scrolling content instead of nurturing interpersonal relationships, they are effectively amusing themselves to death.
The feed no longer needs your friends to produce enough material. It can manufacture social-feeling content at industrial scale.
Social media became parasocial media.
Less posting. More watching.
Less reciprocity. More ambient intimacy.
That creates demand for people-shaped amusements: dramas, characters, scandals, vibes.
Smart slop is effective on the defenseless and dopamine-drugged. Slop is the tool of soft-crime grifters. Slop makes number go up while aura goes down. Slop is taking a beating right now, as if we just invented it, yet it was always there.Bad work isn't immoral but faking the struggle is. Slop is where badness and dishonesty meet. One can be enough. Slop is excess pitched to us as appetite.
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What is slop? Slop is not a medium. Slop is a body severed from its soul. Slop is a narrative lie. Slop doesn't think it's telling you a story; it thinks it's just showing you the world you want to see.
A lot of what fills that demand is easy to dismiss as slop: synthetic, excessive, emotionally cheap.
But "slop" is also what high-status producers call low-status leisure.
For anyone making playful media, the lesson is uncomfortable: you are not only competing with better work. You are competing with cheaper emotional machinery.
The incumbent mistake is arguing about taste while the audience votes with time.
Amusements win attention. And, as Doug Shapiro notes:
For media incumbents, the risk isn't that consumers will passively drown in slop, it's that they'll actively spend their time elsewhere. So, call it whatever you want, but don't dismiss it.
Pop slop may be empty calories.
But empty calories still compete for appetite.