A New Years Resolution List For Posters
We Can All Do Better In 2025
2024 was a year of immense tectonic shifts in the world of posting. America’s Most Embarrassing Billionaire finally managed to mostly destroy his own platform, TikTok is potentially on its way to government-forced-extinction, “alternative” posting sites like Bluesky have seen astronomical growth, and the Facebookification of Instagram, Twitter, and others has been swift and all-encompassing. As we look to the new year, I think it’s helpful to reflect on all the parts of posting that have sucked lately, and look toward the future with an emphasis on the posting stuff that actually seems pretty great. So here are my posting resolutions for 2025, and I hope my fellow High Class Posteurs are able to adhere to at least one or two of them.
Everyone Needs To Relax 20-25%
With the deck stacked the super shitty way it is, I’m pretty confident that the next year is going to be a pretty unhinged affair through-and-through. A second (and most assuredly more insane) Trump term, a politically-exhausted population, a media environment more and more desperate to get and keep eyeballs at any cost, unpopular and endless wars raging on around the world…the forecast looks grim to say the least. So I think the least we can do is give each other a little bit more grace as we all endure this hellish era together. There are so so many valid enemies that have confidently re-asserted themselves into the posting environment, and it would be self-defeating and unnecessarily painful to descend into some of the pointless bullshit we’ve seen so much of in the past 8 years. The worst people in the world are no longer de-platformed, they’re back and more influential than ever - so why not train our enmity on them? I’m not saying we should fully refrain from roasting idiot BlueWave types or enduring bullshit from third-way-cocksuckers, but I think we can all agree that as a group, we have Started Fights Online for Starting Fights Online’s sake. The world will be shitty enough without all of that, let’s not make it worse. Let’s have some fun online for once.
Let’s Post More About Weird Shit We Love
To make my point here, I’m going to embarrass a poster I both respect and admire: Chris Person (aka @papapishu). I do not personally care one bit about meticulously constructed computers, antique fountain pens, or high-end vintage stereo equipment. I use my macbook or phone for emails and posting, my pens are *whatever pen is nearby when I need one*, and every speaker on earth basically sounds the same to me. But I love - and I mean really, really, love - that Chris cares so deeply about these things, and posts about them frequently. There is something genuinely rad about encountering a poster with a deep, in-depth knowledge of something incredibly niche and even arcane - their passion alone makes the posts compelling, but I come away from their timeline feeling enriched, like I have a unique view of an actually constructive part of society that I didn’t know much about before. That’s fucking awesome, and I hope more people start using posting as an excuse to talk about the things they love as much as they talk about the things they hate. (This is one I personally am going to really work on in 2025).
The Follow Ratio Thing Has To Go
In the few months I’ve been using Bluesky, we’ve seen a lot of encouraging signs from the platform. Outside media (like this newsletter) see incredible traffic when posted to Bluesky’s timeline. The site has its own internal drama and eccentricities (an essential for any healthy posting environment). Overall things look really promising! But one element that definitely needs to go the way of the dinosaurs is the incredibly strange obsession many on Bluesky (especially the Resistance Refugees from Twitter) seem to have with “big accounts” and their follower-to-following ratio.
If you’re like me, you’ve never once given this ratio a single thought before all the recent drama. I follow accounts when they post stuff I like, and people follow me when I post stuff they like. Thinking about it any deeper than that is a surefire way to develop early onset schizophrenia, and is deeply offputting to any normal-adjacent person you encounter online. First of all - how would any reasonable person enjoy consuming posts when they follow 10,000+ people? I myself would have to follow seventy thousand accounts to achieve the parity these people seem to want from me. Posting is supposed to be fun. Posting is supposed to be a release. Posting isn’t homework. If you are one of the people who cares even a little about this, I beg you to re-evaluate your choices.
NOTE: Even though Twitter sucks in innumerable ways now, this particular phenomenon seems to have eluded the Twitter user base. Let’s keep it that way even as the site dies a slow and angonizing death.
Blocking Is Back
For years, I was a fierce proponent of the principle that blocking your enemies online gives your enemies content, and you should never give your enemies content. To be honest, I still agree with the general motivations behind that theory - but we’ve all endured years of this shit at this point, and I think its fine to not really want to anymore. I don’t think that online abuse is really the same as real-world abuse, and Tyler The Creator’s wisdom about cyberbullying still reigns supreme, but blocking someone actually works on pretty much every platform except for Twitter, and I don’t think anyone owes it to their Poster’s Reputation to deal with midwit replies from people you wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire. In 2025, save yourself the pain and just block them. I promise you will forget they ever existed by the next morning, and your life will be better for it.
Fewer Memes, More Text Posts
Memes have always had their place, but anyone being honest with themselves will have to admit that they are one of the most lowbrow ways to post. If you don’t believe me, look no further than at America’s Cringiest Poster Elon Musk - this guy LOVES memes. Do you really want to spend your valuable time Being Online making things that this honeybaked-ham-shaped bitch actually enjoys? More importantly, the internet is getting so much dumber. Conspiracy theorists don’t even bother to come up with proper conspiracies anymore. Medieval Peasant Brain is back with a vengeance. Viral posts from Turing-Test-failing bots abound, with every top reply coming from a similarly unconvincing bot account as well. With everything getting so, so stupid, we should endeavor to make things a little less stupid. Well, a better kind of stupid. Think about veteran poster AfraidOfWasps - we should all be working to post a bit more like that dude. Lean into the craft, pontificate wildly, contrive more ridiculous and moronic scenarios - post better, for yourself and for your community.
And with that, I’m logging off for the rest of 2024. I wish you and your families a happy and healthy New Years celebration, and I look forward to posting better in 2025 with the rest of you. Cheers!