On Unstory: Nihilism, Smallweb Discourse, & the Value of Expression
Update: Since the publication of this article, I've been in contact with Unstory and Brennan. I'm happy to report we've all been good sports and have had brief yet fruitful discussions. A couple points of correction: My characterization of Brennan's reading of Unstory as "ghoulish" was apparently inaccurate. Additionally, Unstory's native language is not English, and so I retract my criticism of their grammar.
A blog by the name of Unstory has apparently been making a bit of a splash. Unstory's posts seem primarily to take the form of bleak, nihilistic musings, often within the context of criticizing other bloggers for content Unstory sees as pointless, performative, and insincere.
I stumbled across this topic via Brennan.day's response post, which serves as an admonishment of Unstory's behavior. Brennan walks us through Unstory's posts as though their absurdity and ghoulishness were self-evident, which I ordinarily see as a severe rhetorical no-no. However, upon inspection of the posts, it becomes clear that they don't usually have much substance to which to respond.
For example, Unstory has criticized Robert Birming for displaying toxic positivity:
Boring, out of reality, but the machine for positive, affirmative and empty words. Rainbow and sunshine even though he lives in Sweden. Everything he writes is valuable because he wrote it. If he writes more, more valuable it becomes.
His writing is like closed ecosystem. Just post and it's like sunbeams in January. Self-affirmational vomit of words. It is the ego manufacturing a sense of progress to avoid the reality of having nothing to say. "Every post is perfect", and you should do it more. You know "trust the process" shit.
Rather than a vague introduction to a more in-depth critique of Birming's words, this alone constitutes almost all of the post. All that remains is a response to an unattributed quote in which Birming says that his day job is to inspect homes and give "homeowners advice on how to prevent water damage, fire, and burglary":
He comes, your roof is falling at you, water is leaking everywhere, your walls have cracks, rats are coming to your basement. All is good. Sleep under the roof anyway. More water in the house, water is life. More cracks in walls, better airflow, more rats, more animal love. Your house is perfect, and more it breaks, more valuable it is. Don't repair anything. After all, when roof falls down at your head, the sun's rays will tan your pale skin in your bedroom. One of his pictures shows him under the water. While you are diving and your scuba tank is without oxygen, don't worry, dive deeper.
And that's all.
The issue with Unstory's argument is immediately apparent. The charge against Birming of being toxically positive is unsourced and argued without actually presenting any evidence. For all I know it could be completely true, but the omission of actual quotations and more thorough analysis of what Birming says leaves Unstory's characterization impotent and directionless. The only argument we get that ties specifically to something Birming has said (at least allegedly, as the quote is not linked or clearly attributed to any particular blog post,) doesn't really support Unstory's argument. Birming being a home inspector does not, on its face, have anything to do with toxic positivity. Unstory tries to frame otherwise, by jeering at him with the whole "Your roof is falling, but who cares? It's all good!" retort, but this doesn't make sense either. Birming, by his own admission, advises homeowners on how to avoid damage. He explicitly does not wave away potential dangers. I understand that Unstory is not literally accusing him of being blithe about his job, and is just mocking him in a way that plays up his alleged toxic positivity. But it doesn't make sense to do that here, with this quote, because the quote he's mocking in and of itself invalidates the idea behind the mockery. If I accused Unstory of being an alcoholic, it would be foolish for me to prove it by quoting them saying they are thirty years sober and then saying, "Wow, look at me! I'm Unstory, and I get blackout drunk because I have no self-control!" The quote I'd be using to demonstrate my point would have refuted the point I'm using it to make. So does Unstory believe that Birming is lying? That he's bad at his job? That his job is paradoxical, given his otherwise toxically positive nature? I don't understand what sort of conclusion Unstory is prompting me to draw.
By no means am I attempting here to defend Birming on the grounds that Unstory is being "mean," or that criticizing other smallweb bloggers should be discouraged. (I am, in fact, more tolerant of critical discourse than most people on the smallweb probably are.) I would be more than happy to entertain the accusation, but Unstory simply doesn't provide anything to go on beyond unsourced generalities and a mocking paragraph written in response to a quote that refutes the mockery. So while my initial reaction to Brennan only mustering a brief, nonspecific refutation of Unstory was to be disappointed that he didn't provide more analysis...
his stupid positivity. how does robert not know all positivity is false? man helpfully informs the world of this. man doing service on his blog.
...after looking into Unstory's post, I can understand why Brennan had nothing else to say. Unstory doesn't say enough of substance to warrant a thorough refutation.
At this point, though it was still too soon to say for sure, it had become clear to me that Unstory may be a crystallization of the sort of figure I fear people on the smallweb will imagine me to be when I champion the idea of unrestrained discourse, especially when it involves openly criticizing other bloggers.
But Unstory's blog, at least those portions in which they actually attempt argumentation, is undeniably not without merit. For example, under the purposefully inflammatory title of "Subhumans detected," they express a fairly cogent criticism of consumerism and online activism:
You did not judge yourself while checking your wardrobe or the manufacturer of a hammer you just bought. People die during the production of your daily products, tools, and food you consume every day. The current worldwide supply chain is practically a closed loop. Most corporations are owned by the same companies, and they own parts of each other. You watch movies, subscribe to pointless services, and buy random junk every month. Then you show up online as a superhuman, noble citizen, and ethical role model for everyone. You have to show it, and announce it. You are equally corrupted as the person you criticize. But keeping your utopian stances and ideals when you buy a fork or carpet would not be visible to everyone online.
You are loudly signaling your virtue to everyone around. You left some free online platform. It costs you nothing. Zero sacrifice. It feels like a moral victory for you. That imaginary moral credit you gain, you use then to justify using other, equally harmful, services. You rarely do it in places which are invisible to your audience.
The core idea here is solid: Modern capitalism prevents us from behaving ethically insofar as "voting with your wallet" can be construed as a demonstration of one's ethics, because it is virtually impossible to buy something that does not involve the infliction of suffering upon people somewhere up the supply chain. Furthermore, people are often keen to rage online about the evils of certain products while retreating to equally dubious products that they neglect to take issue with, because consistency in this regard would be painful; either you have to live up to your principles and maintain a totally ascetic lifestyle, or you're faced to bite the bullet and allow yourself to consume things for the sake of your own pleasure, which makes you a hypocrite if you make a habit of criticizing other people's consumption online.
Whether or not you agree with this assessment, it is absolutely a topic worth considering and debating, and Unstory's perspective on it doesn't lose its value just because they cap it with a stupid ragebait title.
Unstory has another post worth reading, in which they argue that expressing yourself online, such as on social media or a smallweb blog, is pathetic and foolish, merely performing free labor for the benefit of people who use it to make themselves richer while you busy yourself with amassing imaginary Internet points and fooling yourself into believing you're doing something worthwhile. They conclude that the only defensible options are to monetize your expression, playing into the algorithms, or to shut up and put the phone down, because if you do it for free, you're just embarrassing yourself.
This is a perspective I absolutely do not agree with, but Unstory makes an argument that is worth considering.
There is something humiliating about producing endless public output while receiving nothing except the psychological reward of being seen.
You voluntarily enter the dopamine casino because sitting alone with your own mind is apparently worse.
You get followers instead of friends.
Engagement instead of conversation.
Audience instead of people.
Visibility instead of existence.
Then you complain that the internet has become shallow.
You are the internet.
"Psychological rewards," then, are intrinsically worthless. But what does Unstory see as a worthwhile alternative?
There are only two intellectually honest options once the illusion becomes obvious.
The first is to play it coldly. Treat words as code. Find the transaction. Write what performs. Exploit the herd. Turn attention into money, customers, influence, or whatever resource you want.
At least then the clown gets paid.
Money makes sense, because you can use it to buy needs and pleasures. Customers are just a step away from money. But Unstory cites "influence" as existing among those motivations which are logical and "intellectually honest." However, as we saw above, they scorn the amassing of "audience instead of people" and "followers instead of friends"; that is, influence. It is not clear why Unstory paints influence in these two mutually exclusive lights, first shaming the reader for pursuing it then chastising them for not pursuing it instead. It's clear that this later usage of "influence" is not merely understood as a proxy for money, as customers are, because it is immediately followed by "or whatever resource you want," that is, things other than money. So, in fact, things other than money can be valuable to Unstory, but the "psychological benefit" of posting on a blog is not one of them, unless that "psychological benefit" has the specific label of "influence." This is not explained.
Unstory does have a good point when they note how the act of publishing your writing, even to a smallweb blog, is not equal to pure, unadulterated self-expression:
People say they like writing.
Maybe they do.
But the moment you hit "publish", the activity changes.
Writing privately is one thing.
Publishing is a performance.
You know somebody may read it. You know somebody may judge it. You know someone may respond. You know what kind of person you appear to be.
The imaginary audience enters the room. You may pretend it doesn't matter. People are remarkably good at pretending things don't matter immediately after doing them precisely because they matter.
This is true. Even people whose blogs or status updates never get viewed bother to publish them because the notion of being seen fulfills a psychological need. To what extent the fulfillment of this need changes the nature of self-expression is a fair question. And I think Unstory has a point when they say that trying to connect to people online is a shallow substitute for forging genuine, real-life social connections. However, in the United States in particular, our communities, cities, and economic system are not built to foster social connections, and are arguably quite effective at preventing them. So while I agree with Unstory that readers of your blog and likes on your status are shallow substitutes, and that relying on them for social belonging is problematic, I think it's a sort of behavior that many people have not much of a choice to refuse. My classes, jobs, and family life don't afford me much time to nurture friendships. Most American adults aren't any better off. We have created a society that works to isolate and divide us, but we cannot help ourselves but psychologically crave connection, and so we find it wherever we can.
I view this as an unfortunate necessity in a world as unjust as ours; Unstory views it as an indictment of humanity, and sees people as contemptible for it. Our observations match, but we arrive at different conclusions. I view self-expression as worthwhile because it fulfills a psychological need, while Unstory views my perspective as self-deceiving and saccharine.
This nihilistic outlook, under which human expression cannot exist for its own sake but is only valuable as a means to an end, appears to be something of a thesis statement for Unstory's blog. They may be likened to a Rick Sanchez-esque figure, who transparently believes themselves to be cognitively elevated above the vast swarms of naive, unthinking drones. This is understandable; most of the world's evil is perpetuated because most people are too dumb or too apathetic to care enough to band together to fix it. Unstory is probably correct that most Americans, at least, are too myopic to understand the hazards of our society and economic system. Believing yourself to hold the rational and correct worldview implies that you believe other people, with other worldviews, are mistaken, and so conviction in your perspective necessitates that you see others as misguided. I cannot, for example, believe that racism and murder are evil without believing simultaneously that racists and murderers are, or at least are behaving in a way that is, evil.
So I don't think the proper response is to castigate Unstory for behaving as if they were smarter than everyone else, myself included. Ideally, Unstory could be persuaded to view their elevated intellectual position, real or imagined, as a station from which to try to better the world. I believe myself to be more or less intelligent, and this is what I do. I don't write moderately lengthy blog posts about rationality because I don't believe my ideas are good and worth considering, and I don't put such effort into making persuasive arguments because I don't desire people to be persuaded into sharing my perspectives. Everyone believes themselves to be correct, after all, and everyone would like everyone else to join them. But I don't believe it does much good to this effect for Unstory to criticize other bloggers without making an effort to do so in a rational way. By all means, call out Robert Birming for being toxically positive if the charge is warranted, but at least make your case rationally, with arguments and sources. It is worth recognizing that being smarter than everyone else is not worth much if you don't do anything with it, and asserting your own superior intelligence is not as persuasive as demonstrating it.
However, I find it difficult to believe that Unstory is much interested in using their abilities, to the extent that they exist, in a productive way for the betterment of mankind, given an email they sent to another blogger, as reported by Brennan, which was quite inflammatory and insulting:
I saw few your own "complains" about your writing or shit around. Your website is pure trash, like your expression. And it's good that way. You want probably to fit in and disappear in the herd. This your trash is at least different than most junk online. You probably think, that if you become "better" at writing or whatever, you get more visibility. Like it matters. If you have one visitor - reader or thousands, what will change? Nothing. You will not get money for that shit, no matter how many "followers" you get. Popularity is fake and if money are not included it's pointless and energy sucking. Nothing will change in your life if you have thousands of readers, people who will repost, like and praise your writing. It would be just artificially made situation when your body will produce dopamine and other chemicals so you feel "important". Now your horrible website is at least "remarkable" shitty ;/ and also very hard to read or navigate. If you improve it or delete, nothing will change.
The context behind what elicited this email is unknown to me, and so I cannot say for sure whether it was sent unsolicited or in response to something the other blogger had written. But the content of this email is the precise antithesis of cogent argumentation. When I argue that the free exchange of critical ideas should be encouraged, this email is the sort of counterexample for which I must grit my teeth and plead that free discussions are worthy despite it. It's just a stream of terrible grammar and personal attacks, and it's beyond consideration that anything productive is possible to glean from this. (Except the claim that the other blogger's website is "very hard to read and navigate," which is actually true.) If Unstory is genuinely as intelligent as they seem to believe, we can still be sure that they have much room to grow in terms of wisdom.
While I don't believe this sort of conduct is worth becoming outraged over, nor do I think Unstory deserves to be deplatformed for it, it strikes me as a real shame, to be honest, that they behave this way when, as I mentioned above, they truly do have a valuable and worthwhile perspective on issues like capitalism, society, and how our culture behaves online. Unstory's blog is not without ideas that are worth reading and thinking about, and it really is a loss for everyone that they're mixed between posts criticizing other bloggers without substantiation. And, needless to say, Unstory does not demonstrate their purported enlightenment by sending nasty emails that don't even contain any substantive argumentation.
For more on Unstory, see this follow-up by Brennan.