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

0:02
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Neverpost, a
0:05
podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
0:08
Rugnetta, and this is the first ever archival pull on the
0:14
Neverpost feed. Over this next year, we're gonna be dipping
0:17
back into the archive to surface some segments you may have
0:21
missed. Maybe you joined us more recently and haven't made your
0:24
way through the back catalog. Maybe the other segment it was
0:29
paired with caught your ear, you listened and then you stopped
0:32
listening because you had to sit quietly thinking deeply about
0:38
what you just heard.
0:39
Don't worry, either way, we are here to trawl through our own
0:43
past and bring to the surface only the finest pieces from the
0:47
back catalog. Our first in this process seemed like an obvious
0:52
choice, both because it was a segment in our first episode and
0:56
also because it's a line of thought that's bracketed so much
1:01
of what we've done in the show since we started. You're about
1:05
to hear me and my good friend Bijan Steven talk about posting
1:09
disease or posters madness. An affliction of those too online
1:16
who become unable to loose themselves from the internet's
1:20
grasp and among other symptoms are unable to appreciate the
1:24
wider world through any lens other than that of the online.
1:30
In a way, the segment presents a fundamental question that we
1:33
grapple with in every episode of Never How do you exist online?
1:39
How do you use, enjoy, and maybe even advocate for the internet
1:46
without going mad? Sometimes the internet makes me feel a little
2:09
crazy as I'm sure it does you too. Social media especially. My
2:13
friend Tim once used this phrase, diabolic merriment,
2:17
which I think about often as the sort of like tizzy one can get
2:21
in, caught in the swirling tides of online. For instance, you
2:26
know, like sometimes I stay up a little late.
2:28
I think I don't have work tomorrow, I'll have a little
2:32
scroll and we all know how this goes. Diabolic merriment. Then
2:38
I'm up till the wee dark and the next morning I have scrollers
2:42
remorse. A different kind of social hangover but I just I
2:47
couldn't tear myself away. I'm lucky though, maybe, in that
2:53
while I often spend too much time looking, I almost never
2:56
spend that time posting, not anymore at least.
3:01
Perhaps you're getting a little insight into why the show is
3:03
named what it is. I don't really desire to contribute most of the
3:07
time in posts because I know what it can lead to. I've lived
3:12
it and I've learned that kind of thing is not for me, especially
3:16
on social media sites like Twitter or X and Blue Sky,
3:20
etcetera. But some people, they live for it. They need the
3:27
attention or some byproduct of it.
3:30
They just can't stop themselves. Another friend of mine, Bijan
3:35
Steven, said something to me once that I also think about
3:39
often. A turn of phrase that is perhaps the other side of the
3:45
diabolic merriment coin. And that turn of phrase is what this
3:49
segment is about. Joining me now is Bijan Steven.
3:56
Bijan is a writer and narrative designer. He's written and
4:00
reported for Vice, vox.com, and The Verge. He worked as a senior
4:04
editor at campsite media where he hosted, reported, and
4:07
produced the narrative history podcast eclipsed and the true
4:11
crime series chameleon. He's currently a music critic at the
4:14
nation and a contract writer at valve. Bijan and I also spend a
4:18
lot of time together playing the actual play podcast Fun City,
4:21
where Bijan is the mysterious retired boxer, TK.
4:25
Bijan, welcome. It is very strange and fun to talk to you
4:28
in a podcast setting where there are no dice involved.
4:31
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. I it's a little weird, but I'm I'm liking
4:34
the lack of a dice roller. I'm gonna be honest. They're not
4:37
terribly nice to me. But thank you for having me.
4:40
I'm glad to be here.
4:42
Mike Rugnetta: I have like a a big real question for you
4:45
Bijan Stephen: Mhmm. Mhmm.
4:45
Mike Rugnetta: With some background. So a while ago, you
4:49
and I were hanging out and we were talking about the Internet,
4:53
as we are want to do, and you said something to me that has
4:58
just stuck like a quill in my brain ever since. It is a turn
5:04
of phrase that I found so immediately resonant that, like,
5:09
I cannot stop thinking about it. You described someone as having
5:13
posting disease, the disease of posters of people who post
5:17
things on the Internet, but crucially, it seems like it's
5:21
not everyone who posts has posting disease, only certain
5:26
people. So I was wondering, just to get us started, if right off
5:31
the bat, you could just describe what is posting disease?
5:36
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. Of course. Posting disease, also known as
5:39
posters madness, is, what happens to your brain, when
5:44
you've been online too long and you start seeing the world and
5:47
experiencing reality in terms of the post you're going to make
5:49
about it. When you've spent so much time online that everything
5:52
looks like a post to you or a potential post,
5:54
Mike Rugnetta: I mean. Okay. This is interesting because I
5:57
think of posting disease as when someone posts on the Internet
6:03
and either just the action of posting or the very content of
6:10
the post is going to be directly harmful to them.
6:14
Bijan Stephen: So to be clear, like, act of posting is bad for
6:17
them and they know it and they do it anyway?
6:19
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
6:20
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. I think that's related. Because I think
6:22
I think I think one is the early symptoms and one is the far more
6:27
advanced disease.
6:29
Mike Rugnetta: Which one is the advanced side?
6:31
Bijan Stephen: I think I really like that when you when everyone
6:33
in your life is like, I hate what you're doing. I hate your
6:36
posts and I hate you because of them. And, you know, you can't
6:39
stop doing that or seeing the world in those terms. Like, if
6:44
you're, for example, like, Graham Lineham, the guy who
6:46
created the IT Crowd.
6:48
Mike Rugnetta: Hey, Mike here. I just wanna break in really
6:50
quickly to say, in case you don't know, Graham Linehan is a
6:52
British TV producer who worked on Father Ted, Black Books, and
6:55
the IT crowd. He has spent the last several years waging an
6:59
unceasingly cruel crusade against the trans community
7:02
online. By his own account, this has made his life much harder.
7:06
Or as Bijan goes on to say.
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Bijan Stephen: Like, you just you lose your mind, you lose
7:11
your wife, then you lose your job, and then you lose your
7:13
agents, and you descend into a hell of your own making, which
7:18
is just populated by your thoughts about the world. And
7:22
there's a bunch of people you can see agreeing with you, but
7:25
nobody else in your real life appears to. And I think it takes
7:29
months of posts like that before you sort of get to you really
7:33
have full blown Poster's disease.
7:36
Mike Rugnetta: Do you think that posting disease is a kind of
7:39
addiction to social media that clouds otherwise open and
7:46
receptive parts of your personality? Or do you think it
7:49
like it's bigger than that or or less?
7:52
Bijan Stephen: I think it's I I I feel like it's an unfortunate
7:55
consequence of living on an Internet that people have
7:58
decided needs to make a ton of money. Like, the the reasons
8:02
that posting disease develops into posters madness, etcetera,
8:06
are specifically because of the incentives. Right? Like,
8:09
algorithmically sorted feeds reward certain kinds of posts
8:13
and don't reward other kinds of posts. And once you've learned
8:16
how to get the algorithm to notice your posts, that's where
8:20
the disease sort of begins to develop.
8:23
And I think because all of these algorithms to a larger or lesser
8:26
extent prioritize engagement, which means like engagement from
8:30
all of the other users seeing your post, Any post with like
8:33
sufficiently inflammatory or out there or just weird ideas can
8:39
get picked up because other people are either dunking on it,
8:42
is another signal to the algorithm. This is more
8:44
engagement. Like because like the other thing, engagement is
8:46
neutral. It's like to an algorithm, a dunk is the same
8:50
as, like, not a dunk. It's the same kind of engagement.
8:54
The more people hate it, the more it gets shared, the more it
8:56
gets dunked on, the more engagement you get. I mean and
9:00
all of these, like, behaviors are positively reinforced by,
9:04
like, the numbers. Right? The metrics go up when you do these
9:07
things. This is a very seductive illness.
9:10
It's like something that truly, like, it it takes hold very
9:13
subtly. And then when you realize maybe what's happening,
9:16
you're kind of in too deep to stop. Those decisions, those
9:19
behind the scenes technical decisions of what to weight more
9:22
heavily and what to promote and what not to promote, I think,
9:26
are the things that actually induce posting disease in
9:28
people. Because the human brain is not designed to produce this
9:32
much dopamine kind of, like, every notification gives you a
9:35
little hit of a good feeling. And I think that specifically,
9:40
the act of being able to receive positive reinforcement at a at a
9:45
distance.
9:46
Mike Rugnetta: And to, like, summon it. You can, like, you
9:48
can Yeah. You can really, like, cast a spell and have it brought
9:51
to you.
9:52
Bijan Stephen: And it's it's really powerful, especially if
9:54
you're feeling lonely or isolated or somewhere where you
9:57
can't really get that affirmation in real life. I
9:59
think it's it's really powerful, but it's a double edged sword.
10:01
Right? Like, it's it can be really good for you or really
10:03
bad for you. And it can both be good and bad at the same time,
10:06
which I think is the confusing part about all of this.
10:10
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So now that we have, like, a sort of
10:12
theoretical backbone and a definition, I wonder if we can
10:15
get practical and just talk about what are some things out
10:19
in the world that are the biggest examples of posting
10:23
disease or even, like, people who exhibit it almost, like,
10:28
paradigmatically?
10:30
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. I think, the most obvious answer, is Elon
10:34
Musk. I think Graham Lineham, who I mentioned earlier, another
10:37
guy who suffers from posting disease. I think any turf in The
10:42
UK, all the Mumsnet posters, those those people are fucking
10:45
nuts.
10:46
Mike Rugnetta: What do they all share that makes that puts them
10:49
in this group?
10:51
Bijan Stephen: They share they share a desire to be victimized,
10:57
to be the victim of whatever situation they're in. I think
11:02
they also seem to share, like, this this basic sense of
11:06
aggrievedness. Like, they are they are perpetually crotchety
11:11
about something in society. Like, they want to convince
11:14
people that their views are correct about things, and that
11:17
the way they see the world is the right way to see it.
11:20
Mike Rugnetta: That's a big thing, I think, for this group
11:22
of people specifically like Elon Musk, Graham, JK Rowling.
11:27
Bijan Stephen: Exactly.
11:28
Mike Rugnetta: It's like they all seem like they really they
11:30
want a very specific group of people to like them.
11:34
Bijan Stephen: Yes.
11:34
Mike Rugnetta: And for some reason, they view posting as the
11:37
main way to do that. Yes. And in it seems like instead what is
11:42
happening is that for each of them, it is just ruining them.
11:46
Bijan Stephen: Posters madness in in its most full blown forms
11:48
is like it's like drinking seawater. Like, yeah, maybe
11:51
you'll feel a little less thirsty, and then you'll feel
11:53
much more thirsty. It's never going to accomplish a thing you
11:56
want it to.
11:57
Mike Rugnetta: But I think we should say also or we should
11:59
recognize that this is a very particular stripe of posting
12:04
madness. And that to me, there is there is another stripe of
12:07
it, which is like Chrissy Teigen, who has Yeah. Publicly
12:11
admitted. She's like, I have like, I gotta step away. I am
12:14
doing this too much, and then couldn't.
12:16
And like, k you know?
12:18
Bijan Stephen: She also has not seemed to have posted on Twitter
12:20
since May 8, so there is hope.
12:22
Mike Rugnetta: Or like, does Alyssa Milano belong in this
12:25
grouping at all?
12:25
Bijan Stephen: Yes. Absolutely.
12:27
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So what what why? You're looking at the
12:29
post right now. Can you
12:30
Bijan Stephen: tell us why? Resistance posters are also like
12:34
they they fall into this category because they do think
12:36
post online are equivalent to taking actions in the real
12:39
world, like with your physical hands and legs and stuff. And
12:44
the idea that you have to weigh in on everything that happens in
12:47
your specific domain is is is a sign. It's like that's another
12:51
symptom.
12:52
Mike Rugnetta: I think of Alyssa Milano as belonging to a group
12:55
of people who have a posting madness that also includes,
13:00
like, say, Brooklyn dad defiant.
13:02
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. Who is resistance grifter. Yeah. Yeah.
13:04
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Another sort of like, yeah,
13:05
resistance grifter or, you know, depending upon who you talk to,
13:09
like, party operative, liberal shit poster Yeah. Is something
13:14
I've seen people describe him as. People who are doing this
13:18
kind of, fight picking, you know.
13:20
It's like every post is arguing against some imagined
13:24
interlocutor who might never actually exist or interact with
13:29
them.
13:29
Bijan Stephen: Right. You make up a guy and get fucking mad at
13:31
them. That's a classic classic way
13:32
Mike Rugnetta: of us a guy. The classic move. Make up a guy.
13:36
Bijan Stephen: I think, the most enduring discourses are, like,
13:40
the low stakes cultural friction ones. Like, it's like washing
13:44
your legs. White people don't wash their legs. That was a
13:46
discourse. The dress, another kind of it wasn't really a
13:48
discourse, but it was like the kind of thing that is extremely
13:53
low stakes that everyone can have an opinion on and everyone
13:56
can do a riff on because, you know, it's that's the whole
13:59
thing is where you can do you see it, or do you not see it, or
14:02
what are you seeing?
14:02
You know?
14:03
Mike Rugnetta: And it's something you can have a
14:04
perspective about what's right on.
14:06
Bijan Stephen: Exactly. And it's so low stakes that it does not
14:09
matter.
14:09
Mike Rugnetta: Maybe the the sort of hierarchy that we're
14:12
developing here as far as what meaningful vectors of posting
14:16
disease are is that all trends are low level vectors of posting
14:23
disease. It is possible that they will trigger its
14:25
development, but that any amount of discourse is a stronger
14:30
vector. And the more one can reasonably say that they are
14:36
correct about their take on that discourse, the stronger the
14:41
vector for posting disease it is. So something like the dress
14:45
is like, I think probably very low likelihood that someone
14:49
could be insistent that their perspective on it is absolutely
14:53
factually right. Whereas Right.
14:55
Washing your legs is something that I feel like is maybe a
14:58
middle of the road. You can more vociferously defend your
15:01
position as being correct, especially I think if your
15:04
position is wash the legs because that feels like moral
15:08
high ground.
15:09
Bijan Stephen: Yes. I think the Internet is is flattening in the
15:12
way that it does not seem to allow people to have two
15:14
thoughts about the world at the same time. Nuance is not
15:17
incentivized, and I think that's why posting in the gray area
15:20
about gray area subjects is always going to lead to, like,
15:24
stronger, worse opinions, because other people could be
15:27
right. You know? Yeah.
15:29
If you're recognizing yourself in some of these examples, maybe
15:32
it's time to take a second and think because I do think this is
15:35
not untreatable. It's not like something it's not like death
15:38
sentence. It's not like an a social death sentence, should
15:40
say. You just have to, like, sit down and rethink what's going
15:44
on. Like, you you just need to to make sure that your
15:48
engagement with these social platforms and the Internet at
15:52
large is something that is positive and healthy and
15:54
generative and not something that's, you know, making you
15:57
feel terrible all the time.
15:58
Like, if you're wondering why people are just yelling at you
16:00
all day and your mentions, the problem is you.
16:02
Mike Rugnetta: To follow our epidemiological metaphor that we
16:06
have with posting disease at least, less so posting madness.
16:10
I wonder if we could get prescriptive and to say Sure.
16:14
You, the poster, the imagined poster, here are the things that
16:19
you can do, the preventative measures that you can take to
16:24
prevent yourself from contracting this illness. What
16:29
is the pre post safety checklist, that that we can put
16:35
together?
16:35
Bijan Stephen: Yeah. That's a good idea. I I think, knowing
16:39
what your post is about and what your real intentions with it
16:42
are. Are you trying to promote something? Are you trying to
16:44
start some Discourse?
16:45
Are you trying to respond to some Discourse? Are you
16:47
subtweeting? Like, are you what are what are you doing? Second
16:50
thing is thinking about the potential impact of your post on
16:54
your life. Is this going to make your life marginally worse in
16:57
the next twenty minutes to two days?
17:00
And if so, like, just don't don't do it if you can't handle
17:04
it. You know? Like, if if you can't handle the heat
17:06
Mike Rugnetta: Stay out of the posting kitchen.
17:09
Bijan Stephen: Stay out of the posting kitchen because you're
17:11
not ready to cook. If you are going to post and you've decided
17:16
to make the post and you're you have your heart set on it, just
17:19
think about, like, whether or not you actually want to handle
17:22
the kind of criticism that you might invite from the worst bad
17:25
faith readers online who can't tell between not liking
17:28
something and thinking it's morally bad. You know? Like
17:30
like, what will you do when your post if your post escapes
17:33
containment? You know?
17:34
That's I think that's another good question to ask yourself. I
17:38
will also say the one thing that you should really do is just
17:41
never assume the thing you're doing is normal because there
17:44
are so many people and so many different kinds of experiences.
17:47
And it's the the funniest low stakes dunks are people being
17:51
like, what? You don't wash your legs? That was like a week of
17:53
discourse on Twitter.
17:54
And it's just like, Why did we do that?
17:58
Mike Rugnetta: Do I absolutely need to contribute to this
18:01
conversation is I think a very important question to ask
18:03
oneself. That's
18:04
Bijan Stephen: that is really the question. That's the the
18:06
guiding thing. It's like, what am I actually doing here?
18:09
Mike Rugnetta: Can I just turn to someone or text a friend
18:12
about this instead?
18:13
Bijan Stephen: I think one thing to remember is that there's
18:15
almost no way to win an argument online because people will never
18:19
say that they were wrong. If you're actually sure about what
18:22
you're doing and you realize people just don't understand it,
18:25
that's one thing.
18:26
Mike Rugnetta: But then you gotta be able to walk away.
18:27
Bijan Stephen: You gotta be able to walk away. You also gotta be
18:29
able to distinguish when you've actually been wrong. So if
18:31
you're going to post, admit to yourself the possibility that
18:34
you might be wrong about what you're posting. If somebody's
18:37
like, hey. Rethink this.
18:38
I have to be able to distinguish from whether they're being
18:41
assholes or not and trying to just teach me something. Because
18:45
it is your responsibility if you're going to post. You you
18:47
can't miss an opportunity for learning, I think. Like, because
18:51
posting is obviously a two way street. Like, you you are
18:54
reaching out to a bunch of other people to try and connect with
18:56
them.
18:57
And it is I think the base your base responsibility to have the
19:02
humility to think that you might be wrong and somebody hit and
19:04
other people have things to teach you, you know?
19:09
Mike Rugnetta: I think that's extremely meaningful and great
19:13
advice.
19:14
Bijan Stephen: I've this is the the advice that I'm always
19:16
trying to take myself, but I hope somebody finds it useful.
19:21
Mike Rugnetta: Bijan, thank you so much for joining us. I really
19:23
appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to have a
19:25
chat with us about posting disease and how to avoid it.
19:29
Bijan Stephen: Of course. Anytime. I love talking about
19:30
posting, unfortunately, which is it's in itself, you know, that's
19:34
a slippery slope.
19:35
Mike Rugnetta: Where can people find you and your work online?
19:38
Bijan Stephen: The place I'm posting the most these days is
19:40
Blue Sky. But, yeah, you know, I I do I have a blog. I have a
19:44
website. It's bichonsteven.blog. That's right.
19:48
Let's go.
19:58
Mike Rugnetta: That is the archival episode we have for you
20:01
today. If you'd like to listen to the original upload with news
20:05
and interstitials, you can find the link in the show notes.
20:08
Neverpost is primarily listener funded. So if you enjoyed this
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You can gain access to an ad free member feed while helping
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us keep the show going.
20:22
Never posts producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the
20:26
mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior producer
20:29
is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer,
20:32
and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. I like a
20:37
wreckage I can manage myself. The chance it offers for that
20:41
particular version of power that comes from winnowing cleanly the
20:45
lost from the still salvageable.
20:48
Not erasing disorder exactly, but returning order to a fair
20:52
footing at least beside a wilderness I wouldn't live
20:56
without. Excerpt of If You Will, I Will by Carl Phillips. Never
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Post is a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed
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by Radiotopia.