Both HN itself and prolific HN contributor simonw get shoutouts in the article:
“The term [‘slop’] has sprung up in 4chan, Hacker News and YouTube comments, where anonymous posters sometimes project their proficiency in complex subject matter by using in-group language.”
“Some have identified Simon Willison, a developer, as an early adopter of the term — but Mr. Willison, who has pushed for the phrase’s adoption, said it was in use long before he found it. ‘I think I might actually have been quite late to the party!’ he said in an email.”
The first substantive discussion of the word here seems to be this:
4chan has been calling things "slop" for literally so long I can't remember when it started. If you go to /g/ literally right now, ctrl F slop, 4 hits just on the front page previews.
If anything, it originally started as calling things "goyslop", which you might be able to deduce is a portmanteau of "goyim" and "slop", the implication (given it's 4chan) of course being that it's low-quality stuff made by Jews that is foisted upon the "goyim" (non-Jews). To the point that I usually see people calling it "AIslop"... specifically to differentiate it from "goyslop", so pervasive is the use of the term.
I'm honestly surprised "slop" (in this specific context) is hitting the mainstream (apparently) given it's so closely married to anti-Semitic undertones. I assume it's kind of like Pepe? People see the cute frog or the edgy designation of things as "slop" not knowing that's kind of a minced version of how it's actually used on 4chan.
It helps that "slop" has a widespread, intuitive meaning (in this setting) that doesn't need 4chan's anti-semitic usage. I hadn't even made the connection to the 4chan phrase, even though I'd heard it before.
(This is in contrast to Pepe, which was popularized principally on 4chan and then exported by reactionaries.)
Harold Bloom often called Harry Potter generic "slop" upon release in the 2000s and /lit/ uses the insult the same way without any undertones. /tv/ is probably the biggest user of all the different insult 'slops since that medium is thoroughly middle of the road and they know the only fun to be had of late is in discussing how shit something is rather than consuming it.
It would be strange if the slop industry didn't try to take over the word since they exist to preempt all charges against their authority.
The regular person will never get these terms right. Most people are not aware of this game of telephone they're unwillingly being part of. It will never ceases to annoy me. I still shudder at seeing "Troll" being misused.
Actually "engineer" as well in countries where it's not protected. Though the confused look on my German housemate's face when an "engineer" turned up to connect the cable broadband cable to the property was pretty funny.
"Goyslop" as an insult is less about anti-semitism and more about how Jews are allegedly injecting anti-white multiculturalism (ex: DEI) in entertainment.
So things that are woke get called goyslop (as opposed to Jewish as you imply).
> I assume it's kind of like Pepe? People see the cute frog or the edgy designation of things as "slop" not knowing that's kind of a minced version of how it's actually used on 4chan.
The way 4chan lingo seeps into mainstream Internet discourse is so annoying. It happened with "degenerate" too (which, of course, 4chan borrowed from the Nazis' Degenerate Art Exhibition).
“The term [‘slop’] has sprung up in 4chan, Hacker News and YouTube comments, where anonymous posters sometimes project their proficiency in complex subject matter by using in-group language.”
“Some have identified Simon Willison, a developer, as an early adopter of the term — but Mr. Willison, who has pushed for the phrase’s adoption, said it was in use long before he found it. ‘I think I might actually have been quite late to the party!’ he said in an email.”
The first substantive discussion of the word here seems to be this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40301490