Microslop is the latest in a rich history of nicknames that have been given to tech giants which have committed a major faux pas in the eyes of consumers, and doubtless it won’t be the last such label to be pinned on a company or one of its products.
With the momentum around Microslop now apparently reaching fresh heights, making us all wonder if this is a nickname that’ll really stick, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at five of the biggest blunders that earned tech companies – or one of their major product launches – a disparaging nickname, starting with the firm of the moment, Microsoft.
1. Microslop
The fever pitch only seems to be growing around the ‘Microslop’ nickname that was coined at the start of this year. It happened when Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, talked about the “need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication”, and consumers who are deeply unhappy with what they see as Microsoft’s fixation on AI jumped on the ‘slop’ term and fitted it neatly into the company name: Microslop.
In case you weren’t aware, AI slop is a derogatory term for AI features crammed into a product – like Windows 11 – for the sake of it.
As Windows Latest highlighted, it’s now gone as far as a new Chrome extension called ‘Microsoft to Microslop’ which has just been released. This renames every mention of Microsoft in the browser to Microslop, so when you’re on the Microsoft 365 subscription page, for example, it’s called Microslop 365. (The extension seemingly only changes the visible text, nothing else on the websites you visit, so it won’t break any links).
As noted, the danger is that Microslop is a name that’ll truly stick, although I do wonder why it isn’t Micro$lop. What with Micro$oft being a traditional longstanding nickname for the Windows maker referring to the firm’s perceived focus on profits rather than the user experience of the desktop operating system.
2. Windoze
Speaking of Windows 11, I can’t compile a list like this without mentioning a nickname that was applied to Microsoft’s OS a long time ago. In fact, there have been derogatory nicknames for Windows for as long as the platform has existed.
You can trace ‘Windoze’ back to the nineties and early versions of the operating system (which was originally just a GUI or graphical user interface that sat on top of the base operating system, DOS). It’s a jab at the sluggishness of the OS, as in you’ll ‘doze’ off waiting for Windows (or elements therein) to load, and from the early days for Microsoft, there were complaints about slow performance – which still holds true today.
A common alternative is ‘Winblows’ and that’s self-explanatory of course, although in my opinion, it doesn’t fit as well, and doesn’t refer directly to performance – which has been the longstanding and most prominent issue with Microsoft’s OS as far as user complaints go. As you’re likely aware, complaints about File Explorer or search begin sluggish persist to this day with Windows 11.
3. Glassholes
Remember Google Glass? First unleashed as Project Glass in 2012, Google’s smart glasses became controversial and the device was eventually scrapped for consumers in 2015 (it wasn’t until 2023, mind, that the product was fully ditched in the business world).
What didn’t help, no doubt, is the nickname coined for wearers of the device – ‘Glassholes’ – due to them getting distracted, looking away from people they were talking to (to see the AR view the glasses provided), or just generally being in a world of their own and maybe walking into you in the street.
4. Ngreedia
‘Ngreedia’ (or sometimes ‘Greedvidia’) is a term commonly applied to Nvidia by those posting in online forums, and it derives from the spiralling prices of GPUs. Obviously enough, it relates to the perceived greed of Nvidia and the cost of GeForce graphics cards, particularly higher-end models, which have shot up in the current decade.
The phrase became popularized after the global pandemic (although it was in use somewhat before that) and was reinforced by the ridiculous prices that graphics cards reached in 2021, driven by stock shortages (related to cryptocurrency, and also price scalpers). It’s also true that the asking prices for top-end GeForce GPUs are creeping up again, and are now reaching ludicrous levels that are doubtless giving us all deja-vu.
5. Antennagate
This controversy is a big deal in terms of the history of disparaging nicknames because it was the first time that Apple suffered a ‘gate’ affair, which has become a label applied to, well, pretty much any major issue with the company’s products.
Way back in 2010, ‘Antennagate’ revolved around the reception problems with the iPhone 4 and its antenna system, and famously led to the ‘you’re holding it wrong’ meme. Since Apple let the bad press around this flare up, and Antennagate became a widely used term, we’ve had the likes of bendgate, scratchgate, batterygate, and many more.
Any time there’s a whiff of a problem with an Apple device, someone inevitably starts calling it a ‘gate’ in online posts. So, this is effectively a themed series of nicknames that has truly stuck – and it could all have been different had Apple not made the missteps with the iPhone 4’s antenna.
(As a sidenote, Apple’s Mac Pro, the heavyweight of its computer line-up, has had some unfortunate nicknames pinned on the PC due to its design, which I can’t resist bringing up as honorable mentions: namely the ‘Trash Can’ and ‘Cheese Grater’).
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