Posts About Posts
In the past two weeks, I’ve noticed an uptick in what I can only describe as “posts about posts.” Posts describing the way others ought to be posting. And for fair reason—social media has been particularly chaotic lately, as the world has been particularly chaotic; I can see why some would try to impose order.
But I don’t like posts about posts. Also, this newsletter is a post about posts. I’m so sorry. Sometimes, I feel like being self-aware about hypocrisy makes it permissible. Maybe I was hugged too much as a child.
Anyway, most of these posts about posts fall into one of three camps:
“now is not the time to make jokes.”
“silence is violence, so take a side.”
“stick to your lane, don’t post if you’re not an expert.”
I’m not going to put anyone on blast as an example—good intentions underline all of them. You’re just going to have to trust me that these types of posts about posts exist. Or, you can log onto Twitter for, I don’t know, 12 seconds.
I’ll start with the first one. I believe that if it’s ever appropriate to make jokes online, it’s always appropriate to make jokes online. And I specify online, because I don’t want anyone to take my advice and start making jokes at a funeral. Jokes are only acceptable at some funerals.
Why? I don’t think it’s productive to rate tragedies. To post, “please don’t make jokes when so many are grieving” is to imply that there is ever a day when no one grieves. When I see posts like this, I wonder if the poster doesn’t consider something tragic unless it’s on the front page of the New York Times.
I believe it’s okay to post both unrelated and related jokes, at any given time. There’s nothing I don’t believe can be joked about, if the joke is funny enough. Wokeness has not “ruined” comedy; it’s raised the bar. There are topics I personally avoid, but that’s because I don’t trust myself to clear the bar. A good rule of thumb is to punch up. For example, on the first day of the Israel-Hamas war, I saw a viral tweet that read, “I thought Jared Kushner fixed all of this.” See? Punching up. Because Jared Kushner stands head and shoulders above other men.
I want to acknowledge an important right: the right to be offended. Anyone can take offense to anything at any time. If a person is triggered by an Instagram reel, then that that reel is, by definition, triggering. That doesn’t mean the person who posted it is under an obligation to delete it.
Now, the second point—"silence is violence.” I’m sympathetic to this argument, as I think there are times when it’s important to speak up, and also, I like things that rhyme. Change can be affected by an enormous number of people saying the same thing. This is how we got Netflix to keep FRIENDS.
Furthermore, it’s tempting to think this message is just a virtue-signal, that no one is actually paying attention to who’s staying silent. But this isn’t always the case. For example, in yesterday’s New York Times, Elizabeth Spiers described signing on to Twitter to find requests that she make a comment about the Israel-Hamas war. So, it’s worth discussing if this argument has merit.
I would say no. I don’t think anybody ever has to post. Posts don’t really do that much. No offense. I’m a Poster; it’s part of me, and still. If I scroll past 99 posts “condemning the violence on both sides,” I don’t notice the 100th. To assume someone is indifferent because they don’t post is to assume people show their whole selves online. This strips people of a very small but still important part of their humanity: their IRL selves.
When I don’t post, it’s not always because I don’t have an opinion. Sometimes it’s because I only have opinions. Which brings me to:
The third type of posts about posts: that you shouldn’t post if you’re not an expert. I like this policy because it would cut down on 99% of all posts, and then all the apps would go under, and I’d finally be free. In all seriousness, though, I can’t abide this rule, as any number of major decisions are made by non-experts. Of course, our politicians, but also, our voters. And that’s not a dig—no one has time to become an expert on everything. In this upcoming election, Americans will get to choose between candidates with radically different ideas of how to handle the war in the Middle East (among other issues). So, people know enough to vote but not post?
Furthermore, there are benefits to posting about something you’re not an expert on. If a woman posts something factually inaccurate online, she’ll be corrected immediately. This can be a learning experience! You get to learn how annoying men on the internet are.
Some will discourage posts from non-experts by saying they can’t be explained in a tweet. This is true. But consider the possibility that a conflict like the one between Israel and Hamas also can’t be fully explained in a 1000-page book. Or that no one has all the information. That there is no one person on this entire planet who knows the full truth of the situation. That there is no full truth of the situation. Does that mean no one should post? Are we supposed to survive with zero posts?
There’s only so much people have the bandwidth to learn, so if you have something to say, something people might find interesting, or something just makes you feel like you have control, in a wildly uncertain world—tweet it. Just tweet it.
I have no rules for my own social media. When I feel compelled to post earnestly, I do, but it’s usually about smaller topics pretty close to me. It’s not because I think I need a certain level of expertise to post (I would never let “not knowing things” stop me from “posting things”). It’s because I feel the most stirred to write something sincere if I don’t see other posts about it.
Now, I want to acknowledge that people who post these posts about posts, who try to regulate content on social media, have their hearts in the right places. As individuals, we are basically powerless, especially in the face of war, climate catastrophes, disease, etc. So, I understand wanting to feel like you’re doing something. And I would remind you that donating money is always an option.
But why am I, then, writing my own post about posts? Because I think it’s important to make fun of the news. It makes the news tolerable. And the more constricted people feel about what they’re allowed to post, the fewer jokes we might have, at times when we most need them.
I think mockery is powerful. One of the most formative books I’ve read in the last several years was The Contrarian by Max Chafkin. It’s a biography of Peter Thiel, and he covers his whole crew, including Trump. I’m a leftie (as you probably guessed), and my Twitter feed reflects my leanings. When Trump’s Access Hollywood tape was released, and we heard him proclaim that men needed to grab women “by the pussy,” the responses I saw were exclusively horror and outrage. But what Chafkin explained is that among MAGA supporters, the video was also embarrassing. Because Trump was revealing himself to be a beta. He was acknowledging that he’d been rejected.
It left me with the sense that for a certain type of man, one way to undermine their support is to mock them. I don’t want to overstate the importance of this—it would only work on a very specific type of man, and there are other, more effective ways to undermine a leader’s support, like to vote them out of office or perhaps put them in jail. But we all have a role to play.
Ultimately, if I am to live by my own rules, I can’t tell people to stop making posts about posts. Because to do so would be to fall into the same trap. But perhaps I can encourage you to ignore them. Because maybe they don’t matter much. Maybe what matters is that the whole internet rises up as one to call Jim Jordan a cuck until he withdraws his nomination.
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