@merriamwebster
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@merriamwebster Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
Trending short videosMerriam-Webster announces 2025 Word of the Year
The edit1 shot · 9 text
Shots Text
Performance
- Views
- 560K
- Likes
- 37.3K
- Comments
- 516
- Engagement
- 6.8%
- Outlier
- 2.6×
Video #15164 · Carousel
Merriam-Webster announces 2025 Word of the Yearfrom @merriamwebster
[01]
Overview
This is a six-slide Instagram carousel from Merriam-Webster announcing 'slop' as the 2025 Word of the Year. The first slide is a satirical, AI-style collage visually representing 'slop', while the subsequent slides define the word, explain its origin, and provide commentary on its cultural relevance in the age of AI.
[02]
Simple outline
- 1Announce breaking news
- 2Define the core concept
- 3Provide real-world examples
- 4Trace historical origins
- 5Deliver cultural commentary
[03]
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Classification
[05]
Hook analysis
What stops the scroll in the first 3 seconds
Title hook · 25%
Slop
Verbal hook · 20%
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
Visual hook · 55%
A chaotic and surreal digital collage featuring a giant cat walking on two legs, fighter jets, a golden statue holding a misspelled sign ('Wood of of year'), and a 'BREAKING NEWS' banner, which immediately signals absurdity and grabs attention.
[07]
Hook and payoff
The promise the opener makes, and how the video pays it back
Hook
A bold, news-style declaration of the subject matter to immediately establish authority, urgency, and relevance.
Payoff
Conclude with a broader commentary on what this concept reveals about society or technology, shifting the tone from purely informative to thought-provoking and empowering.
[08]
Narrative framework
The structural pattern this video runs on
Framework
The Cultural Phenomenon Breakdown
Deconstructs a trending cultural concept by starting with a bold announcement, defining it formally, grounding it in relatable examples, exploring its history, and concluding with a profound societal takeaway.
- 1
The Formal Definition
Establish the exact parameters of the concept using an authoritative, objective format (like a dictionary entry) to create a shared baseline of understanding.
- 2
The Cultural Context
Explain why this concept matters right now, highlighting its relevance to the audience's current daily experience and validating their frustrations or observations.
- 3
The Relatable Evidence
List specific, everyday examples of the concept in action to ground the abstract idea in reality, proving its ubiquity.
- 4
The Historical Anchor
Explore the origins, etymology, or evolution of the concept to add educational depth, sensory details, and unexpected trivia.
Themes
Techniques
Trends
Post caption
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
Text overlays
title · photo_0
Slop
contextual · photo_0
Wood of of year
contextual · photo_0
BREAKING NEWS
branding · photo_0
MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S Word of the Year 2025
informational · photo_1
slop noun digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence
informational · photo_2
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen slop as the 2025 Word of the Year. All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again.
informational · photo_3
The flood of slop in 2025 included absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, “workslop” reports that waste workers’ time, and lots of talking cats. People found it annoying, and people ate it up.
informational · photo_4
Like slime, sludge, and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch. Slop oozes into everything. The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was “soft mud.” In the 1800s it came to mean “food waste,” and then more generally, “rubbish” or “a product of little or no value.”
informational · photo_5
In 2025, amid all the talk about AI threats, slop set a tone that’s less fearful, more mocking. The word sends a little message to AI: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.