Ten Thousand Posts

What If Your Phone Was Spying On You? (It Is) ft. Shoshana Wodinsky

We're joined by Gizmodo's Shoshana Wodinsky to talk about how tech companies are using the impending repeal of Roe v Wade as an opportunity to expand their surveillance apparatus and abilities, and how basically every smart phone is going to be used as a hyper-personalised surveillance device that will employ the combination of ad-tech, tracking and state surveillance to build a system that constantly monitors you, tries to sell stuff to you and, also, arrest you. Shoshana tells us some ways ...

True Crime Is Rotting Your Brain ft. Emma Berquist

We're joined by the writer Emma Berquist (@eeberquist) to talk about a recent piece she wrote on the pitfalls of the True Crime boom, and how the explosion of true crime content, in the form of podcasts, youtube channels and Tiktoks, might be contributing to a culture of intense, and often racialised, paranoia. Emma talks to us about how True Crime shows often borrow from the fear-inducing features of tabloid papers an...

Phoebe’s Reality Tv Club: Love in the Flesh (Episode 1)

Since Hussein promised Phoebe she didn't have to watch cartoons anymore, and he is an honourable man who sticks to his promises,  we're instead watching Reality TV. We watch the first episode of Love In The Flesh, a show in which photogenic but extremely online young people who have, supposedly, only dated on the internet, meet each other in real life on a tropical Island. The show marries the aesthetics of Love Island with the slight unhinged-ness of Catfish, to convey what happens when...

The Fandom Menace ft. Jessica Lucas

This week we're joined by Jessica Lucas (@jessicalucaswrites) from Input Magazine, to discuss the "Will White" fandom, something that does actually exist, and apparently consists on various Moms on TikTok going to war with each other. We talk about contemporary fandom, how to understand what it is, and fandom as a form of expression and social relations, rather than one of veneration and support. Plus, we discuss Pick Up Artists on Twitter, and their new strategy of Twitter Roleplay to market...

Cringe Festival ft. Chanté Joseph

We're joined by writer and presenter Chanté Joseph, to talk about her recent VICE article on Cringe, and whether being cringe could in fact be a form of liberation. We talk about what it means to be 'sincere' on the internet, at a time when authenticity seems like a poor designation, and whether the appeal of cringe actually just emerges at a time when there are too many trend cycles that are happening too fast. Is thi...

Kony 2022 ft. Dipo Faloyin

We're joined this week by Dipo Faloyin, a journalist, senior editor at VICE and the author of "Africa Is Not A Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa".  In this episode, we talk about the legacy of Kony 2012 - one of the first 'super viral' social media campaigns, and the ways that it impacted the economies and societies of a number of countries in Africa. We also talk about the nihilism that emerged out of the failures of Kony 2012, and the ways they shape how we unders...

HK's Anime Club: Serial Experiments Lain ep. 13 (The Finale)

We did it Joe! We finally got to the end of this series. On the final episode, Lain, who is now the defacto god of the internet, has to try figure out what to do with her powers, and, how to make the internet and the real world separated places again. Will she succeed? Or will she accidentally found a social media company? Either way, she'll be girl bossin' , and we appreciate that.

Twitter Musk: A Fragrance For Losers ft. Paris Marx

This week, Paris Marx (@parismarx), host of the Tech Won't Save Us podcast, talks to us about Elon Musk's near-take over of everyone's favourite website, and his vague plans to make all the features worse to, uh, own the libs? I guess? We talk about how Musk's purchase really does fortify the "Everything Is Posting" thesis and how Musk's Twitter is guaranteed to make everything more stup...

HK's Anime Club: Serial Experiments Lain, E12

We're on the penultimate episode of this damn series, so we're joined by Devon to talk about Lain's final debate with the God of the wired - a debate she wins fairly easily?- causing the God to go sicko mode. We also talk about the real victim of all this, Alice, who basically has THE worst day of her life, all spent inside the world's dampest house. 

Poster’s Potluck #2 ft. Alice Caldwell-Kelly

Alice (@aliceavizandum) joins us this week to talk about some fun posts and TikTok's we found, and we also talk about the whole 'Libs of TikTok' debacle, and why the whole 'doxxing' conversation is both boring and a red herring that the Libs are conceding to the extremely online right.

Listen to Alice's Podcasts at:

Trashfuture: https:...

HK's Anime Club: Serial Experiments Lain E11

This week we're going back to Cyberia to talk about Lain's current adventures. In "Infonography", The God of the Wired explains more about Lain's purpose in the Wired, suggesting that she is simply a conduit to his rule over the world (women once again doing emotional labour!). We also find out how Lain exists as "software" and in that way, she is designed to constantly be posting and making people mad for reasons they don't quite understand. Also the weird alien shows up again and it's never...

Gary, We Hardly Knew Vee ft. Münecat

This week, we're joined by Youtuber and Musician Münecat (@munecatmusic), to talk about venture capital influencer Gary Vee, a man who seems to be on some really unique cocaine constantly and demands that everybody makes content all the time. We talk about how Gary - a patron saint of the Rise and Grind genre of Youtube - has the same conclusion about content as us ...

He's Making A List, He's Checking It Once [Part 2] ft. Annie Kelly

In part two of our chat with Annie Kelly, a co-host of the podcast QAnon Anonymous, we talk about what's next for QAnon, and why we might see more Q theories make their way into environmental movements and Eco-Fascist tendencies. Because this episode was recorded a while ago, we also talk about Will Smith's Oscar's Slap, and why so many people online kept trying to link it to the Ukraine War, or the *real* global war against Stand Up Comedians????

Stop Queering The Cookie Monster! ft. Eleanor Janega

Eleanor (@goingmedieval) joins us once again to talk about this weird thing where TERFs and Trad guys seem to realise their visions of the future really aren't that different, and how following the same pathology of posts have allowed them to arrive there. We also talk about how Trads have successfully used the political purchasing power of TERFs to advance their own anti-feminist politics, in such a way that their onli...

Bad News ft. Joe Bernstein

We're joined this week by Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein) to talk about his recent Harper's long read on Disinformation and the commercialisation of fact-checking, misinformation reporting, OSINT, and its implications of how we understand news, information and data. We talk about what Joe considers to be "Big Disinfo" and the ways in which important work - discerning the truth on the internet- can be leveraged and co-opted by the tech platforms that incentivise and encourage fake news and weaponis...

Rescheduled Episode Release

Hi all,

Just a note that this week's free episode will be out tomorrow due to an emergency rescheduling.

Bonus episode will be out on Friday as usual, and normal scheduling resumes from next week.

Thanks! 

Poster's Potluck ft. Devon (Updates)

We decided to take a little break from *the discourse on main* this week, to sit as friends and enjoy the Poster's Potluck - where we each bring a few posts we thought were interesting, amusing or downright deranged - and talk about them at length. We also revisit friend of the show Bevvie to see what she's thinking about the war in Ukraine, and propose setting up a Devon Updates twitter account. 

Sunset & Vine ft. Oobah Butler

Were joined by Oobah Butler, a writer, satirist and host of MTV UK's Catfish, to talk about how scamming is embedded into basically every form of online culture, and how actually, a lot of people really love to be in on the ride, even if they're the ones who are about to lose. Plus, we talk about Oobah's ongoing beef with Jeremy Vine, wherein Vine is trapped in Oobah's mind palace, with no way out.

He's Making A List, He's Checking It Once ft. Annie Kelly

We're joined this week by Annie Kelly, an academic and co-host of QAnon Anonymous (@AnnieKNK) , who talks to us about what QAnon is up to these days, and how they're taking the whole War in Ukraine situation. We talk about QAnon's current identity crisis, as it tries to figure out what its supposed to be, or who its supposed to be rooting for - all while still trying to continue to play the hits, in an even more crowded cont...

😂 Live, Love, Cry Laugh ft. Huw Lemmey 😂

We're joined by writer and podcaster Huw Lemmey, author of "Bad Gays: A Homosexual History", to discuss his recent substack essay on the Cry Laugh Emoji, and its links to British 'banter' culture and cultural encouragement of cruelty. We discuss how concepts of accepted cruelty as social relations became digitally mediated, and how the cry-laugh emoji embodies the worst elements of it, as well as a broader, political effort to enshrine dehumanisation into policy-making. We discuss how and why...

Watching The War (Part 2) ft. Milo Edwards

Milo (@Milo_Edwards) joins us once again to talk about the ongoing war in Ukraine, and how its being presented online. In this episode, we talk about how the war has shaped the Russian internet, and whether Putin's plans to build a localised, domesticated internet is even possible, as well as the weird parts of the Russian internet that simply cannot be contained, despite how many wires are cut. We then talk about Russia and Ukraine's digital strategies in promoting propaganda, and the limita...

Watching The War (Part 1) ft. Oscar Rickett

We're joined by Oscar Rickett (@oscarrickettnow), journalist and editor at Middle East Eye, to discuss the events taking place in Ukraine, and how we are viewing clips, videos, articles and posts about it from Westerners. We discuss the role of content in relation to journalism and information distribution, and at what point content stops being productive as a way of raising awareness and spreading messages of activis...

HK's Anime Club: Serial Experiments Lain, Layer 10

Hussein and Phoebe talk about SEL Layer 10, "Love", in which Lain finally meets The God of The Wired (just a guy) who tries to debate her about the existence of God and the necessity of religion. That's right, turns out even in The Wired you can't get away from New Atheists harassing young girls. Lain, trying to challenge The God, decides to wipe out all the gamers from The Wired....but will it work?

Poster's Grindset ft. Symeon Brown

This week, Hussein talks to journalist, producer and author Symeon Brown (@symeonbrown), about his new book "Get Rich or Lie Tryin' :Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy". We talk about how hustles, scams and cons have become all but ubiquitous features, not just of influencer economies, but internet culture itself- and how a digital environment built on shams and deceit have been weaponised by everyone fr...

HK's Anime Club Serial Experiments Lain, Episode 9

Clean Your Virtual Room ft. Charlie Warzel

We're joined by Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) , who writes the newsletter Galaxy Brain for The Atlantic, to talk about a recent piece on Web3, crypto economies and the phenomena of a technology that's desperately searching for a culture to justify its existence. We talk about how the shift to web3 relates to the 'vibe shift' - moving to an undefined space that i...

The Revolution Will Not Have A Brand Partner ft. Rachel Connolly

Friend of the show Rachel returns to the pod to talk about her recent Guardian piece on influencers, cynical activism and the limitations placed on protest movements when corporate-backed influencers jump on the bandwagon. We talk about how influencer marketing has changed over the past decade, to the point where it is now entrenched into the daily lives of most internet users in subtle and unexpected ways, leading to a situation where we can't really define what a 'celebrity' is anymore, abs...

Nostalgic Vibeset ft. Aaron Thorpe (@Paradoomer)

This week, we're joined by Aaron (@Paradoomer) from The Trillbillies Podcast to talk about a recent essay he wrote about nostalgia, gritty reboots, hauntology, and the inability to conceive of any kind of future, let alone one that might actually be better. We talk about how and why reboots fail to capture any kind of contemporary moment in the age of content, and why this has also led to a situation where shows about teena...

Jester Mindset ft. Milo Edwards

Milo returns to the poster's dome to talk about how and why comedians have become influencers and what this suggests about how we think about comedy and making jokes. We talk about how internet culture has changed comedy, and the way that comedians develop routines and profiles - being far more aware of online discourse, than the audience they're actually playing to - creating a situation where to be a very successful comedian, you don't really have to be funny. You just need a bit of charism...

10k Posts Film Club: The Matrix Resurrections ft. Sophie (part 2)

Hussein and Sophie jack into the Matrix once again to complete the watch of the latest Matrix movie. Now that Neo is once again "out", we find out what happened to Zion after the humans-machines war, how the new Matrix is powered through tons and tons of posts, and the great heist to reunite Neo with Trinity by sending Chad to the virtual divorce court. In the second half, we talk about how Lana Wachowski thinks about revolution and radical optimism being co-opted, and the ways in which that ...