Macquarie, the leading Australian dictionary, announced that the phrase “AI slop” was voted as the word of the year for 2025, following the committee’s selection and massive public support.
“AI slop” became famous due to bizarre viral images like “Shrimp-Jesus” and strange posts by public figures. The term refers to low-quality content produced by generative artificial intelligence, often filled with errors, inconsistencies, and incongruous elements.
A typical example is “Shrimp Jesus,” a series of images combining Jesus with sea creatures—all AI products that became popular on Facebook, serving spam accounts. As reported by the Stanford Internet Observatory, such content increases engagement metrics, boosts bot accounts, and directs users to suspicious websites.
The Macquarie Dictionary defines the term as “genetically produced low-quality content with errors and elements not requested by the user”—essentially, the spam of the new era. The committee commented that now, besides being “search engineers,” we are forced to become “prompt engineers” to identify what is valuable amidst the chaos.
“AI slop” is part of a broader set of concerns about the future of online information: the overproduction of irrelevant material by AI, reproduction of copyrighted works, and their impact on critical thinking.
The list of candidate terms also included “attention economy,” “bathroom camping,” “clanker,” “ozempic face,” “Roman Empire” (as a meme trend), and other terms reflecting internet culture in 2025.
Last year’s word of the year, “enshittification,” is further justified as online content becomes increasingly cluttered and unwieldy.
While “Shrimp Jesus” may bring smiles, the need for real rules in using and disseminating AI-generated content is more pressing than ever.
