Long vacations are opportunities to engage in brainrot content, especially when the weather outside is frightful. I find myself having to consciously avoid compulsive, nonsensical, low-quality content that corrodes my mental or intellectual state, including doomscrolling political outrage.

A more recent threat is AI slop, digital content made with generative artificial intelligence that shows a lack of effort, quality, or deeper meaning, and is often associated with an overwhelming volume of production.

Both are commonplace on Facebook and YouTube, and I know they also afflict services I do not frequent, such as TikTok, Instagram, and X. In late 2025, a report from the video editing firm Kapwing found that on a new YouTube account about 1/5 of the first 500 videos in the feed were AI-generated, and 1/3 of the first 500 videos were brainrot.

In mid-summer 2025, The Guardian reported that 9 of the 100 fastest growing YouTube channels were only showing AI-generated content. I noticed the trend a few months ago when a channel was showing up in my feed that, at first glance, appeared to be decent-quality long-form content. While the narration did use inflections and avoided the worst mispronunciations, after a few minutes I could tell it was a good AI. I also realized that the videos relied on stock footage and AI animations, and the scripts inevitably became long-winded and repetitive. A check revealed that channel was posting such videos twice per day, a clear sign of AI slop.

Some AI content, in moderation, amuses me, such as There I Ruined It. I also recognize some folks enjoy the escapism and distractions of short-form content. However, my preference is human-created longer-form videos that required some research, such as the varied interests of Phil Edwards or, for the truly stoic, Fall of Civilizations. The latter’s latest video on Persia is 5.5 hours long.

Thus I choose to avoid TikTok and X, as I once shunned Vine and Twitter, and there were years in which I subscribed to The New Yorker and used Longreads for long-form articles. Nowadays I use Apple News, and its News+ service has a My Magazines option where I can seek out long-form articles.

Subscriptions

I combat slop on YouTube by relying heavily on subscriptions in which I have manually subscribed to channels I like. I hit the Subscriptions icon in the app to only see videos from my subscribed channels, and there is a control to sort the entries by Most relevant, New activity, or A-Z.

If I find myself doomscrolling on YouTube’s Home page, let alone refreshing it to see fresh options, I know it is past time for me to put down the iPad and do something else. If I can’t go for a walk, then I need to read a physical or electronic book…or go compose a blog post. 😉

If I ever wanted to kill my YouTube addiction, the surefire cure would be to cancel my YouTube Premium family plan subscription, which for $23 per month eliminates its pre-roll, mid-roll, and other standard advertising for Wendy and me. Mind you, that doesn’t eliminate the embedded ads that many creators are paid to personally host within their videos, but I can fast-forward through those easily enough.

YouTube’s algorithm is going through one of its periodic cycles of change, with many creators reeling from dramatic drops in views, which hurts not only their Google AdSense revenue, but also their ability to get third-party sponsors. Several creators are buoyed by Patreon subscribers, and I have been supporting various channels via that service since 2016. As of this writing, I’m suppporting Bookpilled, Dime Store Adventures, Oddity Odysseys, Phil Edwards, Target Audience, Techmoan, and Terry Frost. If you do provide financial support to a creator on Patreon, try to remember to do that via the web interface, not via the Patreon iOS app, since Apple tacks on a 30% charge.

Friends

Over on Facebook, there is a Friends icon that only shows updates from your Facebook friends (along with the ever-present advertising).

I also curate my Facebook feed, unfollowing friends whose posts annoy me, using the Snooze and Hide options, and so forth. Facebook tends to notice my personal vices and feed them via its embedded Reels. I have learned to hit the vertical ellipsis ⋮ and select Hide reel on one after another of those Reels to train it to only show me innocuous cat videos. However, Facebook keeps trying, examining ad tracking and cookies to offer up fresh Reels on occasion to tempt me to engage. When I slip up and watch one, that poisons my feed until I do several rounds of ⋮ > Hide reel on anything that isn’t another silly cat.

Best wishes on combatting brainrot and AI slop in your online accounts. The battle against fake slop is quite real.