The endless iterations of generative AI output oozing through digital social networks has become unofficially designated as “slop.” Often characterized as a bland averaging of training data or hallucinatory distortions, “slop” has come to symbolize dissatisfaction with an excess of synthetic media. While bland recombination hold the potential to become insidious tools of fascism, proffering a simple, clean hegemonic big-data aesthetic (Watkins, 2025; Salvagio, 2023), by focusing on practices of subversion and misuse, we argue for a reframing of generative AI images which sees a potential for detournement of the neoliberal socio-technical apparatus from which these images spawn.

We analyze the Cursed AI Facebook group, a memecultural community fueled by a cadre of artists dedicated to misusing AI for nightmarish visions of intellectual property. Using theory from the mimetic re-turn and mimetic studies, we apply a Shanzhai framing to Cursed AI to show how mimetic processes can yield difference through iterative production and successive variation. In the context of Cursed AI, to engage in this participatory process of sharing, iteration and spread is to enter into the relational flux of memetic media and be changed. We argue that the potential for rupture with AI-generated images comes, not from content or form, but through their potential to initiate and proliferate mimetic relational flux. This paper contributes to ongoing debates on digital aesthetics, AI-generated images, and the mimetic re-turn. It will be of interest to scholars of post-digital culture, aesthetics, meme studies, tactical and alternative media, and critical AI studies.

What happens when the body is platformized as a commercial cultural product, whether as art or sex? This paper develops the concept of body content, building on “algorithmic choreography” to explore the convergence of artistic and pornographic representations of the body in digital creative and erotic industries. Through a case study of a tattoo artist who is also a sexual content creator, we examine how creators curate aesthetics that collapse distinctions between art and sex work while navigating restrictive platform governance. .

The relationship between the body in art and sex work has shifted under platformization, as creators resist the categorization of ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ content. Practices such as Instagram skits that direct users to OnlyFans, or censored artwork sold through Patreon, reveal a hybridized approach to digital labor focused on sex and art. Drawing on Bryan-Wilson’s (2012) dirty commerce, we argue that the historical precarity of sex and art work is exacerbated by algorithmic moderation, shadowbanning (Are, 2022, 2024), and “content reduction” (Gillespie, 2022).

Using posthuman feminist theory (Braidotti, 2022), this study conceptualizes body content as a form of resistance against platform discipline. Our analysis extends current discourse on digital sex and art work by examining how creators at this intersection develop strategic approaches to platform governance that both comply with and challenge algorithmic boundaries. Our methodology combines digital ethnography, in-depth interviews, and platform analysis to provide a comprehensive understanding of how platform governance affects creators working at this intersection.

Cringe aesthetics, often dismissed as lowbrow or embarrassing digital expressions, have been widely studied in relation to humor, social discomfort, and online engagement. Existing research highlights how platform economies shape influencer culture, algorithmic visibility, and digital labor, particularly for marginalized creators (Abidin, 2016; Duffy, 2017, Koushal, 2023, Verma, 2020). Scholars have also explored how digital platforms amplify certain content while invisibilizing others based on class, gender, and caste hierarchies (Zhao, 2024; Milan & Treré, 2019). While previous work has examined algorithmic biases and digital exclusion, little attention has been paid to how platform infrastructures actively produce and sustain cringe as a labor category, disproportionately affecting rural, lower-caste, who are often female creators in India. To address this, this study employs a multi-method approach, combining platform ethnography with semi-structured interviews of rural content creators labeled as ‘cringe.’ By analyzing how platform affordances, algorithmic recommendation systems, and engagement-driven visibility shape digital labor, this research uncovers how creators navigate economic instability, social stigma, and exclusionary platform economies. Findings reveal that while platforms incentivize cringe content for engagement, they simultaneously devalue the labor of cringe creators, reinforcing structural inequalities. Women creators, in particular, bear the burden of algorithmic visibility while being denied financial and social mobility. This study challenges the dominant narrative of digital empowerment, illustrating how platform capitalism commodifies cringe while sustaining pre-existing hierarchies. By foregrounding the economic and social stakes of cringe aesthetics, this research calls for a reevaluation of digital inclusion frameworks that account for intersectional marginalization in the Global South.

This paper explores this genre of online videos known as ASMR, and tracks the shifting discourses that have surrounded it over time. ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, which is a neologism coined by an online community to describe a pleasant, tingling sensation some people experience when they hear certain, soft sounds. ASMR refers both to this feeling as well as to the genre of audiovisual media content produced to elicit the feeling, and which circulates online, primarily on YouTube. These videos coalesced as a distinct genre as early as 2010, and unlike many other internet trends and memes, are still attracting viewers and stirring public discourse today.

This paper focuses on the discursive ruptures that have shaped and been shaped by this digital-borne genre. I trace a brief history of ASMR’s emergence and development over the last decade and a half, identifying key moments that have come to define (and reinforce) the parameters of the genre.

First, I address the early years of ASMR when creators emphasized its therapeutic qualities while denying its sexuality. Next, I describe the introduction of TikTok, ASMR’s growing global popularity, and its relation to contentious new formats such as mukbang. Finally, I address the deterioration of the genre’s boundaries as it becomes more widely recognizable and referenced in mainstream popular culture. Ultimately, I show how ASMR is a unique digital genre that was co-opted and ultimately shaped by its digital platforms of circulation as well as the discursive trajectory of Web 2.0.