SPOILER: It Should Have Been "Slop"
Cambridge Dictionary has announced its Word of the Year for 2025: parasocial.
My reaction?
Boring. Celebrity-obsessed. Get a grip.
While Cambridge’s clever clogs were analysing our “one-sided emotional relationships with public figures,” anyone running a business in 2025 has been dealing with something far more urgent:
Slop.
Yes, slop – the tidal wave of bland, beige, AI-generated mush flooding the internet.
And here’s the kicker: Cambridge had “slop” on the shortlist. They knew. They still went with the academic term.
Meanwhile, the real problem I hear from founders every day isn’t “how do I analyse my emotional relationship with Taylor Swift?”
It’s: “I’m terrified of sounding like everyone else.”
Fear of slop. Fear of blandness. Fear of creating content so generic it dissolves into the digital porridge.
This is the real word of the year – whether Cambridge likes it or not.
If you want the full breakdown of why “slop” matters more than “parasocial,” and why it’s now the single biggest threat to your brand voice in the AI era…