We Are the Slop
Beyond the Scroll, Part 3: How the performance of online life is eroding authenticity, trust, and connection in local government—and why leaders need to bring it back to real life
In the first two parts of this series, we looked at how screen culture isolates us and how it erodes our ability to think deeply. This week, we turn to what happens when the performance of online life seeps into everything else. In her searing essay We Are the Slop, writer Freya India argues we’ve crossed a line—not only are we addicted to meaningless content, we’ve become it. The stories we tell about ourselves have become episodes, our lives staged for consumption.
For governments, this cultural shift creates a new kind of challenge. When everything is optimized for attention, authenticity starts to look old-fashioned. Residents see communication that feels more like marketing than truth. And when public institutions begin to mirror the same performative style that defines social media, cynicism grows. Trust frays. Citizens stop engaging as partners and start behaving like spectators.
That’s why the next phase of this Beyond the Scroll series will move from diagnosis to action—from what’s gone wrong online to what’s still possible in person. I just wrapped an interview for one of the upcoming stories, and it drives home an overlooked truth: When governments invest in genuine, face-to-face dialogue, it can transform how people interact online. It embodies what this series is all about.
The Performance Trap
Freya India’s essay We Are the Slop is one of those rare cultural critiques that lands with uncomfortable precision. She argues we’re no longer just watching mindless entertainment—we’re becoming it. Our lives, she says, have been recast as a continuous series of episodes to be edited, branded, and streamed for others. Every moment becomes content: the engagement, the promotion, the baby announcement, the breakup. As she puts it, “your trauma becomes my background noise.”
The result isn’t more connection—it’s disconnection disguised as engagement. When every experience becomes a performance, sincerity becomes suspect. The more people market their memories, the harder it is to trust what’s real. For governments, that cynicism is contagious. Residents increasingly assume every message, every video, every “update” is just another act in the show—crafted for optics, not meaning.
That erosion of trust isn’t caused by bad intentions. It’s what happens when the attention economy becomes the air we all breathe. Local government professionals are under the same cultural pressure as everyone else: post, publish, promote, repeat. It’s easy to confuse the act of publishing with the act of communicating. But the more we play by those rules, the harder it becomes to be believed.
The AI Factor
India’s “slop” isn’t only about influencers—it’s also about what’s filling our feeds. Increasingly, that content isn’t even human. AI-generated posts, images, and videos now flood the same spaces where governments are trying to reach their residents. The result is a credibility crisis. When people can’t tell what’s real, they stop trusting everything—including you.
That’s a serious pain point for public agencies. Governments are, at their core, institutions of trust. If residents lump official information into the same digital stew of memes, sponsored content, and synthetic news, the foundation of governance itself begins to wobble. The challenge for communicators and leaders isn’t just to stand out—it’s to stand apart.
Where High Performance Communications Fits
The antidote isn’t to withdraw from social media. It’s to use it differently—to make it serve strategy instead of sentiment metrics. Our High Performance Communications offers a framework to do just that.
1. Strategic Priorities & Planning
Don’t reduce governance to content production. Strategy begins with mission, not metrics. Every post, every comment, every video should still connect to your organization’s priorities and vision. Quick engagement is useful; shallow engagement is not.
2. Organizational Leadership
Leaders set the tone. If executives treat communication as performance, staff will too. The opposite is also true. Model authenticity and restraint. Show that credibility matters more than virality. The courage to stay real—even when the algorithm rewards spectacle—is the new form of leadership.
3. Citizen Engagement & Listening
Reclaim “IRL” as the foundation. Real conversations build trust that digital engagement can’t replicate. Listening in person, making eye contact, and inviting honest dialogue are acts of leadership, not nostalgia. Use digital tools to amplify those connections, not replace them. (Next week’s piece offers a great example of this.)
4. Branding
In a culture saturated with artificial polish, authenticity matters more than ever. Focus on integrity, humility, and consistency. A government brand earns trust by being human, not a hype machine. Your tone should reflect steadiness and sincerity.
5. Content Creation
It’s OK to get creative—even to have fun—but creativity should always serve a message with depth and importance. Memes and humor have their place when they connect to something that matters. Storytelling should be an act of service, not self-promotion.
Beyond the Slop
India’s warning isn’t just about influencers or algorithms—it’s about meaning. Governments can’t change the culture, but they can model something better. They can slow down the conversation, communicate with purpose, and make honesty feel radical again.
That’s the pivot point for this series. The first three essays have been about what’s gone wrong online. Next, we’ll look at what’s still going right in person—how cities are rebuilding trust and connection through genuine, in-the-room engagement. Because you can’t get tough projects over the finish line relying on social-first or social-only tactics. To build sustainable trust and credibility, you’ve got to go IRL.
Onward and Upward.