"slopsober"
Est. Read Time: 4 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
New to the SternJourn? It’s a place where Julian (me) promotes shows; and talks about comedy, writing, productivity, and whatever the hell else he [I] want(s). Check out the best of 2025, 2024, 2022, 2021, or 2020 [I’ll get around to a best of 2023 at some point]!
Shows!
[Melrose, LA, CA] Flow-In Cafe. Friday January 24, 6PM.
[Santa Monica, CA] 100 Julian Sterns. Saturday January 31, 8PM.
[Los Angeles, CA] Download Comedy. Thursday February 6.
[Los Angeles, CA] MCing Coat Rack Reveal Party. February 7.
[Santa Monica, CA] 100 Julian Sterns. Saturday February 21, 8PM.
[Santa Clarita, CA] Peak Comedy Show. Thursday, March 26.
[Canton, OH] Headlining Canton Comedy Boom! Friday May 8.
[Future Shows] Fill out this form to lemme know what city you’re in if you wanna see me perform there! Takes 5 seconds! 22 people have done it so far! Could you be 23?
Hello Sternal Journalists!
A quick one today as I try to relieve myself of the 2025 that caused me to miss an unprecedented (I think) 8 weeks of SternJourn last year. But I think it’s an important, if underbaked, idea (by the way—"important, if underbaked, ideas" might be the new slogan of the Sternal Journal).
Earlier this week, I sent my sister a TikTok over text. She replied, “Excuse me we deleted TikTok [sobbing emoji] [sullen emoji].” Because, yes, I had forgotten. She, like many I know and many before her, deleted TikTok as a New Year’s resolution. This is good and I support it, so I replied, “Oh yeah! Slopsober!”
Slopsober…
The word just rolled off my fingers into the text. It felt like it came from nowhere. Yet… it felt important.
Slop, if you don’t know, is the overarching name given to “shitty AI stuff.” This is different than “bad AI stuff,” which includes stuff like accelerated job obsolescence or unchecked, untested surveillance software. Shitty AI stuff (“slop”) is more like, say, a 5-second video of a pack of Piers Morgan centaurs galloping through a moonlit hollow.
This is just an example I made up that doesn’t exist, but it could exist if I or anyone plugged that prompt into any of the readily available AI text-to-video services. (I beg you to not make this video).
And this is sort of the issue with slop. Its barrier to existence is so low as to be nonexistent. This is different from prior cultural iterations such as trash. Think about trashy TV. Putting aside entirely the sort of “high art”-ification of reality television in recent years, trashy television, even if it sucked, took effort.
Jersey Shore required time, cameras, crew, some magnetic personalities who were probably very intentionally cast. Even if it was trash, it would not have gone on for so many seasons if it wasn’t somehow inherently worthwhile. It had to justify its existence.
Slop, on the other hand, does not. Slop just gets to pop into the world because of how easy it is to create it. And because of broken clocks and all, sure, some of the slop will be entertaining. I saw one video of a golden retriever doing the Charleston which I have to admit was so goddamn funny, I think about it probably once a day. But this is very much the exception to the rule and does not justify slop encroaching on our digital lives.
THEREFORE! I am declaring my intent to be slopsober. If I see slop, I will not share. I will not comment something snarky. I will not watch ‘til the end to see just how much I hate it. This will probably be super difficult, and it pains me to think that if I’m successful, I’ll never see the golden retriever absolutely obliterating the Charleston. But I think it’s a good idea.
Inspirations! (formerly Recs)
Noah Wyle. Binged season one of The Pitt this week, and damn, that 24 X E.R. is a good show. Noah Wyle especially crushed it. I have two absolute armchair quarterback ideas for how the season could have been better. I will not share them here out of respect for the hardworking people who made the show, but if you want to know them, I would love to talk to you about them.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Friendship. I’m excited to watch Damon and Affleck and writer/director Joe Carnahan’s straight-to-Netflix movie The Rip, partially because it sounds like a Bad Boys-esque action movie, for which I hold a very soft spot in my heart. But I’m also excited because I listened to Matt Damon on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and I loved the way he talked about just wanting to make movies with his old buddy again. If you are my old buddy, you can be sure I want to be making movies or whatever with you.
Mick Herron. I have loved the TV show based on one of Herron’s book series, Slow Horses, but I heard his writing was even better than the show’s. Instead of diving in on Horses right after watching, I thought I’d check out his other series, Down Cemetery Road. I’m about 100 pages in aaand lovin’ it. Funny, biting, exciting. Can’t wait to get back to it. Here’s me reading it with my dogsitting charge, Olive:
Bhad Bhabie. Every now and then, I’m reminded of how incredible a song “Hi Bich” is. I do not think anyone has spun a rough reality TV moment (Bhad Bhabie is the “cash me ousside howbowdah” girl) into such an accomplished artistic career. This sounds like I am joking. I am not. I love this song. And when you are dog sitting a literal non-derogatory bitch, it’s fun to sing around the house.
Alrighty, that’s all for this week! Don’t get sloppy out there. Stay well
Love!
Julian!
"Inspirations! (formerly Recs)": Love this!
Loved The Pitt and eager to hear your ideas for improvement