AI Slop Melodramas Are Taking Over X—and Their Creators Are Cashing In

For 6 months, my hubby convinced everyone that I had stolen millions from the institution I built, including our ain daughter. As I sat successful national court, definite I was astir to suffer my freedom, the doors abruptly opened. My 9-year-old lad walked successful carrying an aged bluish backpack, looked consecutive astatine the judge, and said, “Your Honor. I cognize who framed my mom. They’re sitting successful this room.”

So begins a thread connected X that appeared successful my provender 1 day. I knew that the first-person narrator astir apt didn’t exist, and pursuing this thread would gully maine into a mawkish communicative wherever bully triumphs implicit evil. Indeed, the writer is not a parent connected proceedings for theft, but a self-identified 21-year-old banal trader successful Nigeria, who uses AI to make stories—and gets paid for it by X.

I recovered this retired erstwhile I began wondering astir the proliferation of these compact melodramas of redemption successful my feed. It’s astir apt my ain fault; I sometimes idly click connected these cheesy stories—you know, conscionable to spot what happens next—and the algorithm took notice. In this case, the writer is 1 of countless beneficiaries of X’s Creative Revenue Sharing program, which pays for posts that boost engagement connected the platform. To join, a creator indispensable go a Premium X user, person astatine slightest 500 verified followers, and person drawn a minimum of 5 cardinal impressions successful the past three-month period. The stated extremity is to promote “authentic, high-quality content,” and immoderate of the wealth surely goes to creators doing conscionable that.

But paying for posts that spell viral makes the programme ripe for exploitation. Some creators successful the programme prosecute successful “rage baiting,” utilizing outrageous contented to gully comments and views. In May 2025, X sued 8 Vietnamese creators and 25 “John Does,” alleging that they fraudulently drew wealth from the programme by posting phony AI-generated contented and past boosting engagement by bot-driven comments. In April, X moved to chopped the payments of “aggregators” who chiefly posted quality from different sources, and threatened sanctions against those who overused the BREAKING tag to gully eyeballs. On July 16 of this year, X revealed that it had removed millions of posts that purloined already-published contented posted by others.

It’s not wide however X regards the AI-generated communicative slop that has infected my feed. (The company, present portion of xAI—which is itself present portion of SpaceX—would not reply my questions astir this.) Most of the stories are falsely presented arsenic existent first-person narratives, though it’s beauteous evident that they are fabricated. In galore cases, the creators picture themselves successful their illustration arsenic storytellers. It’s hard to beryllium that the existent authors are AI models, but the immense bulk carnivore the signs. The posts are manipulative and dumb and thing but authentic.

Rob Cover, a prof astatine Australia's RMIT Digital Ethnography Research Centre who studies AI-generated content, broke down the operation of these posts for maine successful an email. It’s arsenic formalized arsenic a sonnet. First comes a rage-baiting setup, “in which an guiltless idiosyncratic is wrongfully fired, evicted, scammed, loses their rightful spot connected nationalist transport, oregon is the taxable of judicial overreach.” This is followed by a turnaround: “The underdog is redeemed portion the adversary is defeated, humiliated, and shamed (often arsenic a practice of a nationalist shaming),” says Cover.

In galore of these tales, narrators are successful possession of sealed documents that crook the array connected tormentors, often successful divorcement disputes oregon the execution of a relative’s estate. Or it could beryllium thing arsenic elemental arsenic an hose rider who fiercely retains their assigned spot erstwhile rude moochers laic assertion to it—and the adversary suffers a locomotion of shame to the backmost of the plane.