Technology

All of those intents cause the cook to make particular decisions regarding ingredients, preparation, presentation, and so on

Strongly agree!

the decisions' outcomes don't matter to this conversation, just the fact that they were made.

Strongly disagree!

The farmer has no intent. He just shovels it into the trough so that the pigs will shut up until they're fat enough to slaughter.

The farmer absolutely has an intent! Which I 'highlighted'. The problem isn't lack of intent, it's that the intent exists and it's dark. However, I think this might help with explaining why I call Kurzkesagt slop though.

Their self described intent is to "spark curiosity in people about science, humanity and our future" using "vibrant and striking vector illustrations". Which seems like a good intent on the surface. "Farmer wants to make sure his pigs are (intellectually???) fat and happy!"

The problem comes from what they call "lies for children". A principle that is important because children can not 'digest' complex ideas, or foods, in the same way as adults. Which is the point of baby food!

The problem arises because Kurzkesagt doesn't proport to have an "intended audience" and it's probably not suited for young children due to the sheer number of bird corpses despite the lies they tell catering specifically to that demographic. Their actual demographic data^1^ shows it skews 18-34 and male which could be primarily dads playing it for their kids but I would suspect that's their true demographic with the true <18 audience being pretty evenly distributed up to the ~54 range.

The intent is to "spark curious" but the reality looks to be a bunch of young-middle age adults slurping on intellectual baby food and lacking the curiousity to move beyond that. If that isn't slop I don't know what is.

Maybe this is just a framing thing

Yeah probably. Chili with a good queso mixed in is delicious! Calling it 'bean slop with leftover nacho toppings' does make it significantly less appetizing.

In your defense, you were watching Love Island. That probably slows down the brain.

Yep! ...and now I need your help designing a test.

Love Island is clearly functional brainrot. Fruit Love Island is more stereotypical brainrot. But is it more, less, or equal functional brainrot? Designing the test ensures you can't be selected to participate.

^1 it does need to be said that demographic data is suspect as hell, but it's the only thing I could find and does seem to line up vaguely with other sources, if you find something better please share!^