Navigating the Sacred in the "Theater of the Absurd": AI Slop, Brainrot, and New Religious Imaginaries

The communicative culture created by generative AI has produced several problematic digital byproducts, identified as "AI slop"—low-quality, data- and image-based content—and “brainrot”—nonsensical or chaotic AI-generated content. Concerns have been raised about how these mutated images and video clips present false narratives and representations of reality that influence human perceptions of truth. However, what if this created content represented more than just digital noise or problematic deep fakes? What if the fragmented images created by AI GPTs’ literalist interpretations of user prompts pointed to new ways of understanding human-machine relationships and meaning-making?  This presentation reframes current concerns about AI slop and brainrot beyond alarmist “moral panic.” It suggests that these transgressive AI media forms represent a “Theater of the Absurd” that mirrors contemporary existential uncertainty about our emerging technoculture. The paper explores how AI platforms and image-based content contribute to a new aesthetics of belief through the case studies of “Shrimp Jesus,” “Exploding Exorcism,” and Italian brainrot characters such as Tung Tung Sahur, I examine how AI slop and brainrot offer unexpected sites for the exploration of new religious imaginaries about the spirituality of emerging AI culture.