AI History “Slop”: How Side Hustlers Are Monetizing the Past

History “slop” is a term coined by internet commentators for AI-generated travel vlogs featuring influencers visiting historically significant locations and events.

One of the most popular channels is Chloe VS History, which boasts around 338,000 subscribers. The titular character travels to various moments in history, where she does things like attempt to “warn the people of Pompeii” about the eruption of Vesuvius or take a tour of Cleopatra’s palace.

This AI-generated influencer was created by a man named Jonathan Laramy from Gloucestershire in the UK. Jonathan uses Google’s AI photo-generation tool Nano Banana Pro to create the channel’s character and photorealistic backgrounds before importing them into the AI video generator Seeddance 2.0.

He also uses Claude to help draft the scripts for the videos. 1

How do AI history videos make money?

While AI history videos are popular on several social media apps, YouTube is the platform that most creators who monetize this content focus on.

As with any side hustle on YouTube, the primary way to make money from AI-generated videos is through advertising. If your channel has at least 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 watch hours or 10 million Shorts views, you’ll get 55% of the revenue from ads displayed on your videos. 2

Of course, the amount you can actually make from ad revenue depends on how many views your videos get. When people quote YouTube earnings, they usually refer to RPM (revenue per 1,000 views).

According to YT Money Calculator, a site that helps creators estimate their potential earnings from revenue, you can expect the following:

• Global long-form content: $2–$8 RPM (across all niches)
• YouTube Shorts: $0.03–$0.08 RPM

Concretely, this means that if you upload an AI history video and it garners 50,000 views, you can expect to make $100–$400 from it if it’s long-form, and $1.5–$4 if it’s a Short. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that long-form content is more lucrative, given that YouTube Shorts are generally much faster to produce.)

Outside of ads, it’s also possible to earn money from viewers who are YouTube Premium subscribers. YouTube doesn’t explicitly state how much revenue you’ll get from views from Premium subscribers, though they state that you’ll collect “the majority of the revenue” that they take in. 3

For those looking to start a side hustle producing AI-generated content for YouTube, you’ll need a few pieces of software.

Most creators use several AI tools rather than relying on a single platform. Typically, you’ll start by using an AI writing assistant to draft a script, followed by an image generator to create scenes and characters. Lastly, you’ll use an AI video generator to animate those images into short clips.

While a lot of this software can be obtained for free, premium versions are more powerful and give you more control. The downside, of course, is that they cost money.

Here are a few of the software programs you can start off with, along with their costs:

An AI image generation tool

One of the most important tools you’ll need is an AI image generator to build the historical locations and influencer persona. As mentioned, Laramy uses Nano Banana to create Chloe for his channel. The premium version of this software, which allows you to remove watermarks, currently costs $23.90 a month. 4

There are other image generation tools available, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. Their paid versions range from $10–$120 per month.

An AI video generation tool

To bring your creations to life, the next tool you’ll need is an AI video generator. Seeddance 2.0 is what Laramy used to create the videos for Chloe VS History. The cheapest version that offers watermark-free downloads costs $9.90 per month. 5

However, this version offers far fewer credits (the currency used to generate videos). If you’re looking to regularly upload content, you’ll need to invest in the Max or Pro Max versions, which cost $34.90 and $59.90 per month, respectively.

An AI writing tool

This one is optional, but if you’re not a confident writer, you may also want to use software like Claude to draft your scripts.

As with image and video-generation tools, the pro versions of Claude cost more. Claude’s Pro version costs $17 a month, while the Max version starts at $100 per month. 6

Video editing software

Once you’ve generated your videos, you’ll also need software to piece the clips together and edit them. Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects are the gold-standard for video editors, and each one will set you back $22.99 a month.

CapCut is another solid choice for video editors and is a more budget-friendly option, with pro plans starting at $9.99 per month. 7

Creating AI history videos may seem like a great side hustle if you’re passionate about the past, but how do actual historians feel about these kinds of videos?

Side Hustles spoke with Brendan Gillis, Director of Teaching and Learning for the American Historical Association (AHA) and a historian by training. Gillis believes that it’s “not a surprise” that these new forms of historical content are popular and believes that, if done well, they can be informative as well as entertaining.

“I think we as a discipline are often really excited when other people have a passion for what we work on,” he said. “Some of these videos are making historical topics more accessible to more people than they might have been a few years ago.”

However, Gillis acknowledged that historians “tend to be a conservative bunch.” He said that the majority of his colleagues “are skeptical or philosophically opposed to AI-generated history content.”

The dangers of misinformation

One of the biggest concerns among historians is that these videos spread misleading information about historical events.

Gillis himself has seen firsthand how AI-generated content can misrepresent the past. He told us about a study performed by colleagues of his at Virginia Tech that examined how teachers were using AI in the classroom.

“In one of the examples that came out … teachers had used AI tools to generate images of the D-Day invasions,” he said. “Some of the images had the soldiers coming off the beach and running into the water or running away from the action.”

Much like those D-Day videos, AI-generated history videos are frequently prone to hallucinating and generating historical inaccuracies. One educational YouTube channel called “magnify” features a video that points out historical errors in Chloe VS History’s content.

While critiquing the AI influencer’s “trip” to Pompeii, Christopher, the channel’s host, pointed out that the stalls were selling baguettes, something that wouldn’t have existed at the time.

Christopher also noted that much of the purported Latin the AI-generated residents are speaking in the video is gibberish.

Reinforcing modern-day biases

Unfortunately, AI is only as good as the data that it’s fed. Gillis believes that inherent biases are woven into historical accounts, which is what AI systems are trained on.

Gillis told us that last year, the White House worked with the controversial right-wing media nonprofit PragerU to create a founders museum, which was held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It featured AI-generated videos of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence talking about their lives.

“There were lots of errors and mistakes,” he said. “The one that really jumped out to me was John Adams on screen quoting the podcaster Ben Shapiro … I think that to me sums up the kinds of mistakes that can crop up in these videos.”

Avoiding these mistakes is easier said than done, he told us.

“Even if you try desperately to keep a political agenda or a bias out of the product that you produce, that’s just not possible because all of the writings of humanity are shaped by our biases,” he said. “Those biases are collected and baked into the archive of materials that are used to train these databases.”

Tackling sensitive historical events

Although many creators claim they’re trying to create an accurate representation of the past, another issue is how they handle sensitive historical events. One particularly controversial trend on YouTube involves AI-generated images of the Holocaust.

A YouTube report from the German technology and digital culture show DW Shift highlighted how AI-generated videos claiming to show Holocaust scenes are trending on social media. The presenter states that many of the people posting these videos are “seeking attention or clicks” but “distort historical facts and trivialize victims’ suffering.”

Gillis said that it’s “incredibly important” to tackle these kinds of topics “with sensitivity to the perspectives of survivors and descendants.”

“That’s a place where the work of historians can provide useful models,” he said. “There are plenty of really excellent histories of the Holocaust and Auschwitz that have found ways of engaging with these sensitive topics while being respectful.”

He added that, “The AI tools aren’t going to necessarily do that by themselves, so it’s up to the creators to be thoughtful about what they’re asking for.”

For better or worse, this kind of AI-generated content isn’t going anywhere. If you’re going to start a side hustle where you use AI to tell humanity’s story, Gillis believes you should collaborate with the professionals.

“Historians aren’t necessarily going to be super excited when first presented with the idea of collaborating with influencers,” he said. “But there are certainly many, many accomplished, thoughtful historians out there who I think can recognize this as an opportunity to engage wider audiences.”

If you want to create this kind of content, Gillis recommends looking at how TV shows or filmmakers hire consultants to “make sure that the entertainment content isn’t doing something egregiously wrong.”

Where to find resources for your AI history side hustle

Gillis went on to tell us that there are plenty of useful resources you can turn to when researching content for your videos. Outside of trusted sources like the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, or the National Archives, Gillis also recommended following other YouTubers who are creating accurate yet engaging content.

“We did a survey at the American Historical Association of Teachers asking them what they use in the classroom,” he said. “The most popular and most trusted resource that wasn’t from a federal archive was actually Crash Course, the video series that John Green produces.”

“The scripts are carefully produced, and they’re generally offering a solid trusted account of the history of the United States. I think they offer a model for how you can tell compelling stories that are grounded in good history in a way that will engage public audiences.”

Outside of the ethics of starting an AI history side hustle, the other question is whether it’s actually worth the investment.

There’s no denying that these videos are popular, and since the barrier for entry is quite low (excluding the ongoing costs of premium software), anyone can realistically start this side hustle.

However, that’s both a pro and a con. With these videos becoming so popular and the increasing availability of the software, you’ll have to compete with thousands of other creators. Building a successful side hustle as a content creator has never been easy, and whether or not yours becomes profitable depends on how much people engage with your content.

Those seeing AI as an easy way to make money are probably not going to succeed, exactly because of how easy it is to make content now. You’re competing against thousands of creators who are uploading content every day, and people are less likely to engage with what you make if they perceive it as lazy “slop.”

For all the criticism Chloe VS History has attracted, it’s evident that Laramy has put a lot of work into crafting something people seem to enjoy. That’s partly because Laramy himself is an avid history buff.

This is the key takeaway when it comes to starting any side hustle: monetize something you’re already passionate about. Otherwise, your side hustle is likely to go the way of the dinosaurs.