Themed Research Seminar (Aesthetics, AI, Criticism, and Cultural Form) Session 1: Vernacular AI, Slop, and Meme Culture

Session 1: Vernacular AI, Slop, and Meme Cultures

Presented by: Maria Gemma Brown and Meg Thomas

Date: Friday 24 April 2026
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in person at 09-835 (Level 8, Michie)

Format: 2 short presentations (20 mins each)

Presentation 1

“No thoughts, just vibes, then rot”: Investigating the cultural economy of “slop” through young people’s experiences of advertising on social media platforms

Abstract

Cultural critics and commentators have begun noticing that platforms are overrun with “slop” – strange, inexplicable, dreamy AI generated content produced by a global economy of “sloppers”. Much of this commentary argues slop is the inevitable consequence of the commercialisation of the web, of digital platforms built for extracting attention, engagement and clicks for sale to advertisers. In this presentation I delve deeper into the commercial aspects of slop by exploring the automated advertising models of social media platforms, the slop which is overtaking them and the experiences of users who wade through it every day. I discuss interviews from the Australian Ad Observatory with a cohort of young Australians aged 18 to 24 who donated a collection of ads they received on social media platforms. In particular participants tied their discussions around slop to the commercialisation of the web; bed-rotting, doomscrolling as well as other forms of “tuning” out; as well as generational feelings of precarity and a disenchantment with modernity. Based on these discussions I claim that the vernacular theories and everyday experiences of participants shifts us to reflect much more broadly about a larger cultural logic, subjective mode and structure of feeling which underpins slop – a “slopworld”.

Presentation 2

Generative play: AI models and toxic vernacular creativity

Abstract

While meme culture has long allowed racism, xenophobia, and sexism to be repackaged in the visual vernacular of the web, generative AI models provide a new set of affordances. These models are easy to access and use; “fun” in the sense of generating unexpected or surprising results; and fast, allowing rapid generation and collective sharing. Combined, these features enable a kind of unrestricted, creative, and computational play that gamifies hate, with an ever-open invitation for others to join in: no technical skills necessary. We refer to these emerging social and vernacular creative practices as generative play – a new form of meme-making uniquely afforded by prompt-based generative AI models. This new sociotechnical production process, fuelled by AI models, prompts us to reconfigure how we have typically understood and characterized “memetic logics” in relation to the study of internet memes.

Presenters

Bio:  Maria Gemma Brown is a PhD candidate in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society, and the School of Communication and the Arts, at The University of Queensland. Her research examines the intersections of marketing and consumer-culture, internet subcultures, and automation on digital platforms. 

Bio: Meg Thomas is a PhD Candidate at UQ. Her work is interdisciplinary in nature, branching across digital media, film and television studies, and philosophy of art. Her dissertation explores how media platforms and internet cultures are reshaping contemporary film and television aesthetics. Beyond the dissertation, Meg’s work explores the intersections between digital platforms, synthetic media, and promotional cultures more broadly.