The Interface Self
The Deeper Thinking Podcast
For those who sense their identity stretching to fit the screen—and want to listen more closely to what remains.
In a world that rewards legibility over complexity, what happens to the parts of us that don’t render cleanly? This episode explores the soft coercion of digital platforms—how identity, emotion, and presence are shaped by visibility logic, and how silence becomes a form of resistance. Drawing from post-structural theory, affect studies, and narrative psychology, we consider what remains when we stop performing and start remem...
The Interface Self
The Deeper Thinking Podcast
For those who sense their identity stretching to fit the screen—and want to listen more closely to what remains.
In a world that rewards legibility over complexity, what happens to the parts of us that don’t render cleanly? This episode explores the soft coercion of digital platforms—how identity, emotion, and presence are shaped by visibility logic, and how silence becomes a form of resistance. Drawing from post-structural theory, affect studies, and narrative psychology, we consider what remains when we stop performing and start remembering the self beneath the format.
This is not a critique of social media—it is a meditation on Goffman’s dramaturgical identity, Foucault’s ambient surveillance, and the technological shaping of subjectivity. With gentle reference to Byung-Chul Han, Mark Fisher, Judith Butler, and Donald Winnicott, we explore how presence dissolves under the pressure to narrate, and how attention fatigue becomes an existential condition.
We reflect on the difference between performance and presence, the ethics of ambiguity, and the subtle grief of being understood too quickly. In a space that rarely allows us to pause, we ask what it means to be unrendered, and why that might be the last intact form of resistance.
Reflections
This episode honours the ache beneath the caption. It’s an invitation to feel what remains when the performance ends.
- Not all silences are gaps. Some are sanctuaries.
- The interface doesn’t demand truth—it rewards repetition.
- We’ve learned to narrate before we’ve felt.
- The uncaptioned moment may be the most alive.
- To be present without performance is an ethical act.
- Sometimes, recovery begins by not posting.
- The truest parts of the self don’t scale.
- Maybe we don’t need to be understood. We need to stay near what can’t be explained.
- Refusal can be quiet, soft, and still make room for freedom.
Why Listen?
- Rethink identity as something performed through architecture, not essence
- Explore the ethics of opacity, slowness, and silence
- Engage with Butler, Han, Fisher, and Winnicott on formatting, emotional labor, and soft resistance
Listen On:
- YouTube
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts
Support This Work
If this episode stayed with you and you’d like to support the ongoing work, you can do so gently here: Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you for being part of this slower conversation.
Bibliography
- Han, Byung-Chul. The Transparency Society. Stanford University Press, 2015.
- Butler, Judith. Giving an Account of Oneself. Fordham University Press, 2005.
- Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism. Zero Books, 2009.
- Winnicott, Donald. The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. International Universities Press, 1965.
Bibliography Relevance
- Byung-Chul Han: Diagnoses the culture of overexposure and how transparency erodes depth.
- Judith Butler: Frames identity as a performative act under social constraint.
- Mark Fisher: Illuminates the psychic toll of systems we feel unable to escape.
- Donald Winnicott: Recovers the concept of a true self that can only emerge without an audience.
The real self isn’t hidden. It’s just uncaptioned.
#TheInterfaceSelf #JudithButler #ByungChulHan #MarkFisher #Winnicott #AttentionFatigue #Presence #QuietRefusal #TheDeeperThinkingPodcast #Selfhood #PostPerformance #AlgorithmicIdentity #DigitalPhilosophy
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