🆕 Never Post! Posting Disease, with Bijan Stephen [Archive Pull]

Well well well! We've got a special, fabulous, and dare I say topical episode for you today. Originally published in our first episode I'm Mad, You're Mad, We're All Mad Here on January 31, 2024, we're sharing Mike's segment on the epidemic of Posting Disease plaguing social media. Turns out that even after two years, people are still failing to figure out a way to stay online...without going mad.

Listen to the original episode here: https://www.neverpo.st/never-post-2/

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Find Bijan:

His blog: https://newsletter.bijanstephen.blog/

Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/bijan.bsky.social

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Never Post’s producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show’s host is Mike Rugnetta.

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CC-BY Licensed Audio Used

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Never Post is a production of Charts & Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia

Friends, hello, and welcome to Neverpost, a podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta, and this is the first ever archival pull on the Neverpost feed. Over this next year, we're gonna be dipping back into the archive to surface some segments you may have missed. Maybe you joined us more recently and haven't made your way through the back catalog. Maybe the other segment it was paired with caught your ear, you listened and then you stopped listening because you had to sit quietly thinking deeply about what you just heard.

Don't worry, either way, we are here to trawl through our own past and bring to the surface only the finest pieces from the back catalog. Our first in this process seemed like an obvious choice, both because it was a segment in our first episode and also because it's a line of thought that's bracketed so much of what we've done in the show since we started. You're about to hear me and my good friend Bijan Steven talk about posting disease or posters madness. An affliction of those too online who become unable to loose themselves from the internet's grasp and among other symptoms are unable to appreciate the wider world through any lens other than that of the online. In a way, the segment presents a fundamental question that we grapple with in every episode of Never How do you exist online?

How do you use, enjoy, and maybe even advocate for the internet without going mad? Sometimes the internet makes me feel a little crazy as I'm sure it does you too. Social media especially. My friend Tim once used this phrase, diabolic merriment, which I think about often as the sort of like tizzy one can get in, caught in the swirling tides of online. For instance, you know, like sometimes I stay up a little late.

I think I don't have work tomorrow, I'll have a little scroll and we all know how this goes. Diabolic merriment. Then I'm up till the wee dark and the next morning I have scrollers remorse. A different kind of social hangover but I just I couldn't tear myself away. I'm lucky though, maybe, in that while I often spend too much time looking, I almost never spend that time posting, not anymore at least.

Perhaps you're getting a little insight into why the show is named what it is. I don't really desire to contribute most of the time in posts because I know what it can lead to. I've lived it and I've learned that kind of thing is not for me, especially on social media sites like Twitter or X and Blue Sky, etcetera. But some people, they live for it. They need the attention or some byproduct of it.

They just can't stop themselves. Another friend of mine, Bijan Steven, said something to me once that I also think about often. A turn of phrase that is perhaps the other side of the diabolic merriment coin. And that turn of phrase is what this segment is about. Joining me now is Bijan Steven.

Bijan is a writer and narrative designer. He's written and reported for Vice, vox.com, and The Verge. He worked as a senior editor at campsite media where he hosted, reported, and produced the narrative history podcast eclipsed and the true crime series chameleon. He's currently a music critic at the nation and a contract writer at valve. Bijan and I also spend a lot of time together playing the actual play podcast Fun City, where Bijan is the mysterious retired boxer, TK.

Bijan, welcome. It is very strange and fun to talk to you in a podcast setting where there are no dice involved.

Yeah. I it's a little weird, but I'm I'm liking the lack of a dice roller. I'm gonna be honest. They're not terribly nice to me. But thank you for having me.

I'm glad to be here.

I have like a a big real question for you

Mhmm. Mhmm.

With some background. So a while ago, you and I were hanging out and we were talking about the Internet, as we are want to do, and you said something to me that has just stuck like a quill in my brain ever since. It is a turn of phrase that I found so immediately resonant that, like, I cannot stop thinking about it. You described someone as having posting disease, the disease of posters of people who post things on the Internet, but crucially, it seems like it's not everyone who posts has posting disease, only certain people. So I was wondering, just to get us started, if right off the bat, you could just describe what is posting disease?

Yeah. Of course. Posting disease, also known as posters madness, is, what happens to your brain, when you've been online too long and you start seeing the world and experiencing reality in terms of the post you're going to make about it. When you've spent so much time online that everything looks like a post to you or a potential post,

I mean. Okay. This is interesting because I think of posting disease as when someone posts on the Internet and either just the action of posting or the very content of the post is going to be directly harmful to them.

So to be clear, like, act of posting is bad for them and they know it and they do it anyway?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's related. Because I think I think I think one is the early symptoms and one is the far more advanced disease.

Which one is the advanced side?

I think I really like that when you when everyone in your life is like, I hate what you're doing. I hate your posts and I hate you because of them. And, you know, you can't stop doing that or seeing the world in those terms. Like, if you're, for example, like, Graham Lineham, the guy who created the IT Crowd.

Hey, Mike here. I just wanna break in really quickly to say, in case you don't know, Graham Linehan is a British TV producer who worked on Father Ted, Black Books, and the IT crowd. He has spent the last several years waging an unceasingly cruel crusade against the trans community online. By his own account, this has made his life much harder. Or as Bijan goes on to say.

Like, you just you lose your mind, you lose your wife, then you lose your job, and then you lose your agents, and you descend into a hell of your own making, which is just populated by your thoughts about the world. And there's a bunch of people you can see agreeing with you, but nobody else in your real life appears to. And I think it takes months of posts like that before you sort of get to you really have full blown Poster's disease.

Do you think that posting disease is a kind of addiction to social media that clouds otherwise open and receptive parts of your personality? Or do you think it like it's bigger than that or or less?

I think it's I I I feel like it's an unfortunate consequence of living on an Internet that people have decided needs to make a ton of money. Like, the the reasons that posting disease develops into posters madness, etcetera, are specifically because of the incentives. Right? Like, algorithmically sorted feeds reward certain kinds of posts and don't reward other kinds of posts. And once you've learned how to get the algorithm to notice your posts, that's where the disease sort of begins to develop.

And I think because all of these algorithms to a larger or lesser extent prioritize engagement, which means like engagement from all of the other users seeing your post, Any post with like sufficiently inflammatory or out there or just weird ideas can get picked up because other people are either dunking on it, is another signal to the algorithm. This is more engagement. Like because like the other thing, engagement is neutral. It's like to an algorithm, a dunk is the same as, like, not a dunk. It's the same kind of engagement.

The more people hate it, the more it gets shared, the more it gets dunked on, the more engagement you get. I mean and all of these, like, behaviors are positively reinforced by, like, the numbers. Right? The metrics go up when you do these things. This is a very seductive illness.

It's like something that truly, like, it it takes hold very subtly. And then when you realize maybe what's happening, you're kind of in too deep to stop. Those decisions, those behind the scenes technical decisions of what to weight more heavily and what to promote and what not to promote, I think, are the things that actually induce posting disease in people. Because the human brain is not designed to produce this much dopamine kind of, like, every notification gives you a little hit of a good feeling. And I think that specifically, the act of being able to receive positive reinforcement at a at a distance.

And to, like, summon it. You can, like, you can Yeah. You can really, like, cast a spell and have it brought to you.

And it's it's really powerful, especially if you're feeling lonely or isolated or somewhere where you can't really get that affirmation in real life. I think it's it's really powerful, but it's a double edged sword. Right? Like, it's it can be really good for you or really bad for you. And it can both be good and bad at the same time, which I think is the confusing part about all of this.

Okay. So now that we have, like, a sort of theoretical backbone and a definition, I wonder if we can get practical and just talk about what are some things out in the world that are the biggest examples of posting disease or even, like, people who exhibit it almost, like, paradigmatically?

Yeah. I think, the most obvious answer, is Elon Musk. I think Graham Lineham, who I mentioned earlier, another guy who suffers from posting disease. I think any turf in The UK, all the Mumsnet posters, those those people are fucking nuts.

What do they all share that makes that puts them in this group?

They share they share a desire to be victimized, to be the victim of whatever situation they're in. I think they also seem to share, like, this this basic sense of aggrievedness. Like, they are they are perpetually crotchety about something in society. Like, they want to convince people that their views are correct about things, and that the way they see the world is the right way to see it.

That's a big thing, I think, for this group of people specifically like Elon Musk, Graham, JK Rowling.

Exactly.

It's like they all seem like they really they want a very specific group of people to like them.

Yes.

And for some reason, they view posting as the main way to do that. Yes. And in it seems like instead what is happening is that for each of them, it is just ruining them.

Posters madness in in its most full blown forms is like it's like drinking seawater. Like, yeah, maybe you'll feel a little less thirsty, and then you'll feel much more thirsty. It's never going to accomplish a thing you want it to.

But I think we should say also or we should recognize that this is a very particular stripe of posting madness. And that to me, there is there is another stripe of it, which is like Chrissy Teigen, who has Yeah. Publicly admitted. She's like, I have like, I gotta step away. I am doing this too much, and then couldn't.

And like, k you know?

She also has not seemed to have posted on Twitter since May 8, so there is hope.

Or like, does Alyssa Milano belong in this grouping at all?

Yes. Absolutely.

Okay. So what what why? You're looking at the post right now. Can you

tell us why? Resistance posters are also like they they fall into this category because they do think post online are equivalent to taking actions in the real world, like with your physical hands and legs and stuff. And the idea that you have to weigh in on everything that happens in your specific domain is is is a sign. It's like that's another symptom.

I think of Alyssa Milano as belonging to a group of people who have a posting madness that also includes, like, say, Brooklyn dad defiant.

Yeah. Who is resistance grifter. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Another sort of like, yeah, resistance grifter or, you know, depending upon who you talk to, like, party operative, liberal shit poster Yeah. Is something I've seen people describe him as. People who are doing this kind of, fight picking, you know.

It's like every post is arguing against some imagined interlocutor who might never actually exist or interact with them.

Right. You make up a guy and get fucking mad at them. That's a classic classic way

of us a guy. The classic move. Make up a guy.

I think, the most enduring discourses are, like, the low stakes cultural friction ones. Like, it's like washing your legs. White people don't wash their legs. That was a discourse. The dress, another kind of it wasn't really a discourse, but it was like the kind of thing that is extremely low stakes that everyone can have an opinion on and everyone can do a riff on because, you know, it's that's the whole thing is where you can do you see it, or do you not see it, or what are you seeing?

You know?

And it's something you can have a perspective about what's right on.

Exactly. And it's so low stakes that it does not matter.

Maybe the the sort of hierarchy that we're developing here as far as what meaningful vectors of posting disease are is that all trends are low level vectors of posting disease. It is possible that they will trigger its development, but that any amount of discourse is a stronger vector. And the more one can reasonably say that they are correct about their take on that discourse, the stronger the vector for posting disease it is. So something like the dress is like, I think probably very low likelihood that someone could be insistent that their perspective on it is absolutely factually right. Whereas Right.

Washing your legs is something that I feel like is maybe a middle of the road. You can more vociferously defend your position as being correct, especially I think if your position is wash the legs because that feels like moral high ground.

Yes. I think the Internet is is flattening in the way that it does not seem to allow people to have two thoughts about the world at the same time. Nuance is not incentivized, and I think that's why posting in the gray area about gray area subjects is always going to lead to, like, stronger, worse opinions, because other people could be right. You know? Yeah.

If you're recognizing yourself in some of these examples, maybe it's time to take a second and think because I do think this is not untreatable. It's not like something it's not like death sentence. It's not like an a social death sentence, should say. You just have to, like, sit down and rethink what's going on. Like, you you just need to to make sure that your engagement with these social platforms and the Internet at large is something that is positive and healthy and generative and not something that's, you know, making you feel terrible all the time.

Like, if you're wondering why people are just yelling at you all day and your mentions, the problem is you.

To follow our epidemiological metaphor that we have with posting disease at least, less so posting madness. I wonder if we could get prescriptive and to say Sure. You, the poster, the imagined poster, here are the things that you can do, the preventative measures that you can take to prevent yourself from contracting this illness. What is the pre post safety checklist, that that we can put together?

Yeah. That's a good idea. I I think, knowing what your post is about and what your real intentions with it are. Are you trying to promote something? Are you trying to start some Discourse?

Are you trying to respond to some Discourse? Are you subtweeting? Like, are you what are what are you doing? Second thing is thinking about the potential impact of your post on your life. Is this going to make your life marginally worse in the next twenty minutes to two days?

And if so, like, just don't don't do it if you can't handle it. You know? Like, if if you can't handle the heat

Stay out of the posting kitchen.

Stay out of the posting kitchen because you're not ready to cook. If you are going to post and you've decided to make the post and you're you have your heart set on it, just think about, like, whether or not you actually want to handle the kind of criticism that you might invite from the worst bad faith readers online who can't tell between not liking something and thinking it's morally bad. You know? Like like, what will you do when your post if your post escapes containment? You know?

That's I think that's another good question to ask yourself. I will also say the one thing that you should really do is just never assume the thing you're doing is normal because there are so many people and so many different kinds of experiences. And it's the the funniest low stakes dunks are people being like, what? You don't wash your legs? That was like a week of discourse on Twitter.

And it's just like, Why did we do that?

Do I absolutely need to contribute to this conversation is I think a very important question to ask oneself. That's

that is really the question. That's the the guiding thing. It's like, what am I actually doing here?

Can I just turn to someone or text a friend about this instead?

I think one thing to remember is that there's almost no way to win an argument online because people will never say that they were wrong. If you're actually sure about what you're doing and you realize people just don't understand it, that's one thing.

But then you gotta be able to walk away.

You gotta be able to walk away. You also gotta be able to distinguish when you've actually been wrong. So if you're going to post, admit to yourself the possibility that you might be wrong about what you're posting. If somebody's like, hey. Rethink this.

I have to be able to distinguish from whether they're being assholes or not and trying to just teach me something. Because it is your responsibility if you're going to post. You you can't miss an opportunity for learning, I think. Like, because posting is obviously a two way street. Like, you you are reaching out to a bunch of other people to try and connect with them.

And it is I think the base your base responsibility to have the humility to think that you might be wrong and somebody hit and other people have things to teach you, you know?

I think that's extremely meaningful and great advice.

I've this is the the advice that I'm always trying to take myself, but I hope somebody finds it useful.

Bijan, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to have a chat with us about posting disease and how to avoid it.

Of course. Anytime. I love talking about posting, unfortunately, which is it's in itself, you know, that's a slippery slope.

Where can people find you and your work online?

The place I'm posting the most these days is Blue Sky. But, yeah, you know, I I do I have a blog. I have a website. It's bichonsteven.blog. That's right.

Let's go.

That is the archival episode we have for you today. If you'd like to listen to the original upload with news and interstitials, you can find the link in the show notes. Neverpost is primarily listener funded. So if you enjoyed this segment, please consider becoming a member at neverpo.st. You can gain access to an ad free member feed while helping us keep the show going.

Never posts producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. I like a wreckage I can manage myself. The chance it offers for that particular version of power that comes from winnowing cleanly the lost from the still salvageable.

Not erasing disorder exactly, but returning order to a fair footing at least beside a wilderness I wouldn't live without. Excerpt of If You Will, I Will by Carl Phillips. Never Post is a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed by Radiotopia.