Sludge content (also known as content sludge and overstimulation videos
) is a genre of
split-screen video on
short-form video platforms like
TikTok
TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
and
YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts is the short-form section of the online video-sharing platform YouTube.
YouTube Shorts are vertical videos that have a duration of up to 180 seconds, and has various features for user interaction. Videos were limited to 60 ...
.
Characteristic of sludge content is unrelated, attention-grabbing side content, meant to increase viewer retention.
Common attention-grabbing videos include repetitive mobile gameplay (notably of the
endless runner
Endless runner or infinite runner is a subgenre of platform game in which the player character runs for an infinite amount of time while avoiding obstacles. The player's objective is to reach a high score by surviving for as long as possible. Th ...
mobile game ''
Subway Surfers
''Subway Surfers'' is a 2012 endless runner mobile game which is co-developed by Kiloo and SYBO Games, private companies based in Denmark. It is available on iOS, Android, HarmonyOS NEXT, Amazon Fire Tablet, and Windows Phone platforms and ...
''),
ASMR
An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)Marsden, Rhodri (20 July 2012), ''The Independent''. is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it ...
or
oddly satisfying clips, and cooking videos.
Sludge videos typically feature one panel of main content with audio, often
copyrighted
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, e ...
material. Common copyrighted material include television episodes (notably of the adult animated television series ''
Family Guy
''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 31, 1999, following Super Bowl XXXIII, with the rest of the first season airing from April 11, 1999. Th ...
''),
Reddit
Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...
posts read by an
artificial voice,
and videos made by other social media users.
Sludge content has been labelled as
overstimulating and
addictive
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use can ...
.
Sludge content may lead to normative
dissociation, which can be soothing. The genre has been described as reflecting and contributing to declining
attention spans,
though the scholarly evidence supporting such claims is not conclusive.
Origins and appeal
The concept of sludge content originates with methods used to subvert copyright detection tools, particularly on ''Family Guy'' "funniest moments" compilations on YouTube.
Editing techniques such as frequent
jump cuts
A jump cut is a cut in film editing that breaks a single continuous sequential shot of a subject into two parts, with a piece of footage removed to create the effect of jumping forward in time. Camera positioning on the subject across the seque ...
, overlaid unrelated clips, and
cropping have increased the longevity of copyright-violating videos on YouTube.
The proliferation of sludge content has been attributed to its ease of creation and its profitability.
Tools like Opus Pro, SludgeAI, and CrayoAI automate the production of sludge content, enabling its mass distribution online.
TikTok's "duet" feature, in which a creator can post a video side-by-side with a video from another creator, has been cited as priming viewers for this form of multitasking.
Users have noted the proclivity of TikTok's
recommendation algorithm to increasingly show such videos to users; the process of steadily consuming more sludge content has been popularly described as a "pipeline" (often called the "''Family Guy'' pipeline" due to the series's ubiquity in such content).
Sludge content has also been described as a form of
escapism
Escapism is mental diversion from unpleasant aspects of daily life, typically through activities involving imagination or entertainment. Escapism also may be used to occupy one's self away from persistent feelings of depression or general s ...
.
Psychologist Natalie Coyle analyzed the videos and determined that the external media increases receptiveness through the concept of "visual tactility".
Digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...
researcher Bjørn Nansen opined that the phenomenon should not be unexpected given the prevalence of
media multitasking
Media multitasking is the concurrent use of multiple digital media streams. Media multitasking has been associated with depressive symptoms and social anxiety by a study involving 318 participants. A 2018 review found that while the literature is ...
outside of TikTok.
Impact
SYBO Games, the developers of ''Subway Surfers'', referenced sludge content on the TikTok account for the game and attributed ''Subway Surfers''
' resurgence to sludge content.
Accounts from content creators including British
power metal
Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within a symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in co ...
band
DragonForce
DragonForce are a British power metal band from London, formed in 1999. They are known for their long and fast guitar solos, fantasy-themed lyrics and retro video game-influenced sound. The band themselves refer to their music as "extreme po ...
, political commentator
Hasan Piker
Hasan Doğan Piker ( ; ; born July 25, 1991), also known as HasanAbi, is a Turkish-American online streamer, YouTuber, influencer, and left-wing political commentator. His streams typically consist of political and social commentary, gaming, a ...
, and
Andrew Tate
Emory Andrew Tate III (born 1 December 1986) is an American and English social media personality, businessman, and former professional kickboxer who is also a citizen of Vanuatu among another countries. He gained notoriety for promoting ...
have posted videos on TikTok featuring sludge content.
Companies, including
Visible,
Pepsi
Pepsi is a Carbonated water, carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo which serves as its flagship product. In 2023, Pepsi was the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long ...
, and
Tums
Tums (stylized as TUMS) is a brand of antacid made of sucrose (table sugar) and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) manufactured by Haleon in St. Louis, Missouri, US. They are also available in a sugar-free version. It is an over-the-counter drug, availa ...
, have used sludge content in advertisements.
The
New Zealand National Party
The New Zealand National Party (), often shortened to National () or the Nats, is a Centre-right politics, centre-right List of political parties in New Zealand, political party in New Zealand that is the current senior ruling party. It is one ...
used sludge content to promote their policies in the
2023 general election.
A 2020 study found that engaging with various digital media on multiple devices simultaneously may worsen attention and
recall
Recall may refer to:
* Recall (baseball), a baseball term
* Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop
* Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure
* ReCALL (journal), ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted langua ...
in young adults. Concern has been raised over the popularity of such split-screen content with young children in
Generation Alpha
Generation Alpha (often shortened to Gen Alpha) is the demographic cohort succeeding Generation Z. Generation Beta is the proposed name of the following generation. While researchers and popular media generally identify the early 2010s as the ...
.
[{{Cite news , last=Singh , first=Anita , date=2023-03-29 , title=Quarter of 5-year-olds watch TikTok videos that 'blur fact and fiction' , url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/quarter-5-year-olds-watch-tiktok-videos-blur-fact-fiction/ , access-date=2024-11-12 , work=The Telegraph , language=en-GB , issn=0307-1235]
See also
*
AI slop
"AI slop", often simply "slop", is a term for low-quality media, including writing and images, made using generative artificial intelligence technology, characterized by an inherent lack of effort, logic, or purpose. Coined in the 2020s, the ter ...
*
Algorithmic radicalization
Algorithmic radicalization is the concept that recommender algorithms on popular social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook drive users toward progressively more extreme content over time, leading to them developing Radicalization, radicaliz ...
*
Brain rot
In Internet culture, brain rot (or brainrot) describes Internet content deemed to be of low quality or value, or the supposed negative psychological and cognitive effects caused by it. The term also more broadly refers to the deleterious effec ...
*
Collage film
Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing Found footage (appropriation), found footage from disparate sources (archival footage, excerpts from other films, newsreels, home movies, etc.). The term has also been applied to the physical ...
*
Content farm
A content farm or content mill is an organization focused on generating a large amount of web content, often specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by search engines, a practice known as search engine optimization (SE ...
*
Corecore
*
Digital media use and mental health
The relationships between digital media use and mental health have been investigated by various researchers—predominantly psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and medical experts—especially since the mid-1990s, after the grow ...
*
Problematic social media use
Problematic social media use refers the use of social media or virtual online community engagement, often excessively, that can lead to negative consequences for the person engaging on social media or their peers. Problems may include impaired ...
*
Remix culture
Remix culture, also known as read-write culture, is a term describing a culture that allows and encourages the creation of derivative works by combining or editing existing materials. Remix cultures are permissive of efforts to improve upon, ch ...
*
Second screen
A second screen involves the use of a secondary computing device to provide a different viewing experience for content on another device. The term commonly refers to the use of such devices to provide interactive features, like posts on social me ...
References
2020s fads and trends
2020s in Internet culture
2020s neologisms
Copyright infringement
Digital media use and mental health
Family Guy
Generation Z
Generation Alpha
Intertextuality
TikTok trends
Youth culture