Brain Rot, AI Slop, and the Enshittification of the Internet: A Symposium

Brain Rot, AI Slop, and the Enshittification of the Internet:

A Media and Cultural Studies Symposium

Date: Friday 5 December

Time: 10:00-16:15, followed by a launch event for Entertained or Else: Boredom and Networked Media (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

Location: ARU Cambridge (East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT)

Recently the terms Brain Rot and AI Slop have emerged as media buzzwords that telescope a range of anxieties surrounding the democratisation of Gen AI tools and the tidal wave of cultural detritus and fabricated content that this has unleashed across our social media feeds. Gathering together speakers from Media and Cultural Studies disciplines, this symposium will critically examine these phenomena in light of the wider financial, attentional, and affective strategies of digital capitalism.

Event Schedule

10:00-10:30 – Arrival and Coffee

10:30 – 12:00 – Session 1

Tina Kendall:

Top of the Slops: A Guided Tour through Brain Rot and Slopcore

Maria Gemma Brown:

Slopworld: Examining the Cultural Economy of Slop through Young People’s Experiences of Advertising on Social Media Platforms

Tony Sampson:

The Struggle for the [User] Experience of Disappointment

12:00 – 12:45 – Lunch

12:45 – 14:15 – Session 2

Xichen Liu:

Excess by Design: Brainrot, Abjection, and the Uncontainable Waste of Digital Capitalism

Daniël de Zeeuw:

Meaning in Operation? NPC Streaming’s Gestural Economy

Alan Warburton:

Beyond Slop

14:15 – 14:30 Coffee Break

14:30 – 16:00 – Session 3

Adrienne Evans:

Doomscrolling for Hope? Digital Feelings in Permacrisis Contexts

Ludmila Lupinacci and Idil Galip:

The Gimmick of Generative Culture: AI Slop, Brainrot, and the Aesthetics of Capitalist Contradiction

Carolyn Pedwell:

Artificial Intuition, Abduction, and Computational Common Sense

Followed by a launch party for Entertained or Else:

Boredom and Networked Media (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

Sponsored by the Centre for Media, Arts & Creative Technologies (MACT)

Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

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