Ten Thousand Posts

This week we're joined by author and journalist Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist, Transmission, and Gods Without Men, to discuss his latest novel, 'Red Pill'. 

The novel is an exploration of radicalisation, online culture, the alt-right, sanity, and history. A writer signs on for a three-month retreat in Berlin and finds himself extremely micro-managed, finding solace in watching a police show called Blue Lives. I'm underselling the novel here but I truly cannot recommend it enough.
But first, we take a look at an essay written by Hari for the NYRB that explores the same themes.

And even earlier still, we watch a tiktok of a woman meeting some nice happy men with snakes.

You can find Hari at https://twitter.com/harikunzru
find the essay we discuss at https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/03/26/trolls-4chan-gamergate-lulz/
and find his novels anywhere books are sold.

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This is a preview of a bonus episode. Listen to the entire episode at: www.patreon.com/10kpostspodcast, where you can also listen to a bunch of other great episodes for as little as $5 a month.
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This week, we take a look at the final two candidates for Leader of the Conservative Party, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. In many ways this can be seen as a showdown between two extremely distinct posting schools, and we can learn a great deal by observing how these two relate to Online.

From Liz's suggestion to create a second internet for kids, to Rishi's increasingly desperate and poorly-thought-out pledges to close Mandarin language schools, this is one for the ages.

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This week we are joined by Kyle Chaka, contributor to the New York Times and co-founder of Dirt, a newsletter about digital culture, to discuss how the algorithm on social media sites invisibly shapes the language, content, and even posting styles most prevalent. We use the example of Instagram's current insane attempt to become Tiktok 2 by pushing hard for a more video-based content economy, and how this is affecting the average user.

We also discuss Kyle's excellent article about 'Algorithmic Anxiety', the constant looming terror that one day the algorithm could just simply change, destroying an up-and-coming influencer's career unless they make drastic changes to their content to optimise it to an ever-shifting and never-explained standard. It's a great chat that actually ends on a hopeful note!

Kyle can be found at https://twitter.com/chaykak

Dirt can be found at https://twitter.com/dirtxyz

and the article discussed in this episode can be found at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-age-of-algorithmic-anxiety

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This is a preview of a bonus episode. Listen to the whole episode at: www.patreon.com/10kpostspodcast

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Katie (@k80way) returns to the pod this week to discuss how the Thin Blue Line guys are handling the fall out of the recent Uvalde school shooting, and how some of them seem to be struggling to steal army valour as even their most ardent supporters begin to critique them. We talk about how this is changing the way cops engage with online, and whether police will be encouraged to post less and ignore the backlash. We also talk about Katie's recent article, in which she spends some time on BeReal, a new social media app that aims to be the 'anti-instagram', while also being funded by the same VC funds that prop up Facebook.
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Read Katie's article, here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/aked58/bereal-is-the-only-good-social-media-app

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Subscribe to Katie's newsletter, here: https://acap.substack.com/

 

This week, we take a retrospective look at the movie Enemy of the State, a Will Smith / Gene Hackman vehicle about the dangers of government surveillance, as the entire force of the NSA is brought to bear against a single man for being tangentially involved in an embarrassing incident for a politician. 

This episode does not feature a plot summary, this is a long conversation about a movie that has an extremely large amount to say.

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This is a preview of a bonus episode. Listen to the entire episode at: www.patreon.com/10kpostspodcast, where you can also listen to a bunch of other great episodes for as little as $5 a month.
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We're joined this week by returning champion Magda Taylor, a writer whose work you'll probably be familiar with through MEL magazine.

Magda talks to us about the "Female Dating Strategy" subreddit,  which, while having been called 'RedPill for Women' by some outlets, represents an understandable cynicism of dating apps and algorithmic romance, and in turn, has spurned dozens of TikTok trends and phenomena, repackaging its 'central pillars' into shareable content that, uh, tends to really only apply to good looking people. Magda talks to us about one of these sub-phenomena, 'Sirenmaxxing', whether its actually a thing, and what it suggests about the way we think about online dating today.

Read the rest of this entry »

It's the Tory Leadership special babey! We've brought on Alan White, the editor of Politics Home, to look at this through the only lens that matters: how well do the potential leadership candidates post?
On the docket today: Kemi Badenoch hacking a Labour MP's website; Penny Mordaunt's attempt to introduce kinder emojis; and just why has the entire election become about whether you can say the word 'Mother' anymore?

You can find Politics Home at https://www.politicshome.com/

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This is a preview of a bonus episode. Listen to the entire episode at: www.patreon.com/10kpostspodcast.
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This week, we're joined by returning champion Jathan Sadowski from the This Machine Kills podcast to discuss Elon Musk's attempts to epic bacon post his way out of signing a multi million dollar contract with twitter, Check in with the Mypillow guy's latest venture, and finally talk about the recent trend of apple Airtags being used by abusers to track women. 

As always, it's a grab bag of the worst of modern capitalism- enjoy!

the original tweet by Hannah rose may can be found here https://twitter.com/Hannahrosemay_/status/1541606540552966144

and the follow-up article can be found here https://www.image.ie/living/culture/airtags-are-designed-to-track-items-not-people-but-thats-not-everyones-experience-455643

 

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This week, we're joined by returning champion and friend of the show James Vincent to discuss his new book, 'Beyond Measure; the hidden history of measurement'. The book tells the story of how measurements developed throughout the course of human history, and how these relatively innocuous-seeming aspects of our life did not arise wholly naturally, were in fact designed by people, and how what is deigned worth being measured gives us an insight into the power structures at play. I wholeheartedly cannot recommend the book enough.

But first, we check in with old friend Elon Musk, in his head-to-head against the greatest poster of all time, Donald Trump.

You can find James on twitter at https://twitter.com/jjvincent

and find his book at https://linktr.ee/BeyondMeasureBook

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Ten Thousand Posts is a show about how everything is posting. It's hosted by Hussein (@HKesvani), Phoebe (@PRHRoy) and produced by Devon (@Devon_onEarth).

This is a preview of a bonus episode. Listen to the entire episode at: www.patreon.com/10kpostspodcast.
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Real heads will remember the first ever episode of Ten Thousand Posts we recorded. The audio was horrible, Phoebe was recording from a phone in a bowl, there were times when Hussein had no idea what she was saying as the line went flat. Nevertheless, we spoke about the most important post, arguably, of the 2010s - one that still underpins much of Twitter discourse today, and set the blueprint for how 'threads' are valued.

Today, we're launching the rebuild of this episode - not least so that people actually can understand what we were talking about. But also, we reflect on the thread's relevance today, and find out what happened to Eric Garland in the post-Trump era: One where, while his political mission has been (sort of accomplished), his real enemy, Edward Snowden, still remains at large in Russia.