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The Year in Epistemic Disorientation
Parasocial. Rage Bait. Vibe Coding. 67. Slop. Each of these terms has been dubbed “word of the year” by a major dictionary. All originated online, went viral, and spread offline, entering the parlance in a way that would have been unimaginable, say, fifteen years ago. While the very selection of “67” might well be “rage bait,” this glossary captures a year of epistemic exhaustion in which intimacy has been streamlined, outrage optimized, production accelerated, and signs stripped of signification within ever more opaque digital infrastructures. “Slop” might, in fact, sum it all up. Fungible and frictionless, slop is the low-quality…
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