The anatomy of a shitpost
yeah that right we're doing this open up buddy
How can I explain to “Jeff the plumber” why “chill guy” is a thing?
How can I make him understand that “no, no, it’s actually very funny.. you see it’s because of, oh wait…. have you seen? oh, nevermind”.
What about holding space for the lyrics of defying gravity?
Or women laughing alone with salad?
please note- these references were in date a microsecond ago- if something has changed and I’m now an old person for mentioning them….apologies
There’s a capital H humour in missing the joke. It’s both the most exclusive and inclusive thing I could be doing on social. Especially on Linkedin. I’ve written (poorly) before about linkedin cringe .
about how low the bar is for a genuine connection on that site.
Adam Kozsary says in his post about what works for museums and social
“The tension then is how to balance what works for the internet with what works for other audiences who are not as ‘online’ as others.”
Ain’t that the truth?
Okay so what is a shitpost?
Oxford dictionary is off base here IMO. This suggests that shitposts are malicious by nature. I disagree.
Memes vs Trolling Vs Shitposting
Easy to get mixed up. Memes have templates and are meant to spread. Shitposts have neither and are more about derailing conversations.
Trolling is more about intentionally provoking a reaction from people shitposting doesn’t always have malice behind it.
The Memetics page on Wikipedia says…
“All evolutionary processes depend on information being copied, varied, and selected, a process also known as variation with selective retention. The conveyor of the information being copied is known as the replicator, with the gene functioning as the replicator in biological evolution.”
That page suggests a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. Wow very highbrow, very interesting.
Trolling
According to Claire Hardaker at Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science an etymological investigation into “trolling” doesn’t get us super far into understanding where tf it came from.
This guide into “the subtle art of trolling” brings more context and nostalgia.
”Your skill is shown in the easy way that you manipulate large areas of the Usenet community into making public fools of themselves.” - Deleted User, OP
here’s one of my favourite OG “trolls” Joey Skaggs - a man.
Here he comes to save the day
“I don’t get it”
”What’s he doing”
The above has been said for both Albert Camus (dead french philosopher/writer) and Andy Kaufman (comedian, totally not dead).
Enter- absurdism.
Briefly (later on, just calm down) I talk about absurdism & art as it relates to memes and internet language.
there’s a great video on absurdism here, but to save you the vocal fry, I’ll summarise…
The absurd arises from the tension between our rational desire to understand the world and its apparent irrationality, leading to a perpetual struggle for meaning in an inherently meaningless universe.
Camus proposed three responses to this inherent conflict
Suicide
A rejection of the absurd but ultimately a self-defeating act
Faith in a deity
An illusory solution that avoids confronting the absurdity of existence
Rebellion/Acceptance
The only defensible option allowing both the absurd and human agency to coexist
This means acknowledging the meaninglessness of existence and choosing to act according to one's own values this is where true freedom lies
(this is what Kaufman and all great artists are great at playing with)
An interlude into cringe
these three scenes. what do they have in common?
They’re cringe. Watching them, you’re glad it isn’t you. it’s a feeling you can hold- not a feeling you can explain.
Sometimes, explaining the jokes themselves is the funniest thing.
The flavours of shitpost
what that looks like in the wild
the setup could start with something seemingly innocuous or serious
(think thought leadership post or a common trend)
the bait the post immediately targets a specific thing about said topic
the twist a sudden unexpected and often absurd shift in tone or direction this is where the humour begins
the absurdity the core of the shitpost exaggeration hyperbole non-sequiturs and unexpected juxtapositions the more outlandish the better
the reliability even though it’s absurd it often taps into a shared experience or frustration making it even funnier this is the key to a successful shitpost
the twist ending *optional* sometimes it ends with another unexpected turn or a quiet observation that undercuts the absurdity
the brevity keeps it short (people have short attention spans)
the tone a mix of sarcasm irony and/or self-deprecation
the engagement designed to provoke comments shares and discussions even if it’s just people saying wtf
the purpose it’s not always to make a serious point sometimes it’s purely for entertainment and to break up the monotony
What I think about when I think about shit posting
Aka “Renée, babe, I beg you to get to the point”
First, a quote from Alain de Botton on Proust
When I questioned the good people on Threads about their views on shitposting- it was a mixed bag.
The responses varied in sentiment.
“A shitpost is an obviously wrong take on a controversial topic, usually made to bait engagement.”
“For me a shitpost is any stupid/random/absurd/poor quality/low effort “content””
Low effort posts that are sarcastic, deadpan, or simply absurd. They are unserious but might be controversial or even offensive, but they don’t have to be. It’s a fairly large umbrella and can range from humorous and/or benign to extremely fucked up and make you want to remove your eyes bad.
Also ur mom is a shitpost
Some shitposting experts
Amber Rhodes — I guess I think of it as a form of satire when done well. Calling out the absurdity in a situation and subverting it a bit.
Jack Virag -a shitpost is a secret handshake between those that see the world for what it really is — a joke
Ken Cheng- It is an antidote against the utter fakeness that people have adopted as normal in their everyday lives. People are posting “genuinely” are no more real and the reason shitposting exists is because everyone is sick of that.
What Proust says of intimacy and defilement¹ is how I feel about people who post memes on “professional” platforms. Through a shared, subversive language, we get a peek into one anothers souls- sometimes at the expense of “professionalism”. - me
That’s all ancient history now
“According to Google Trends data, shitposting became an internet trend around 2014, spiking sometime around the 2016 presidential election and gaining popularity ever since. That time marked the start of a period of upheaval in our country, a spike in nationalism, acceleration in the growth of the wage gap as well as wage stagnation and a growing population of young people frustrated by their surroundings.”- Polygon
*puts on tin foil hat*
Tristan Tzara, a Dadaist poet said of the art form the beginnings of the movement came not out of a desire to make art, but out of a profound disgust with the world”
A reddit user u/games_and_movies says it better than I could
.
“TL;DR: Dadaism is not really parody, but shitposts often are; random shitposts that don't follow a formula are more dadaist than the more popular exploitable shitpost format, so the idea that shitposts are dadaism is pretty much on a case-by-case basis.”
that is how I consider shitposting.
This newsletter is a big ol shitpost. Maybe you’re frustrated by the poor grammar and punctuation, lack of flow and consistent flow.
That’s the beauty of it. Or maybe it’s not.
Love you
‘¹’Proust on defilment (yeah that's right, baby- we’ve got citations)