The Deeper Thinking Podcast

The Interface Self - The Deeper Thinking Podcast


Listen Later

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

            ...more
            View all episodesView all episodes
            Download on the App Store

            The Deeper Thinking PodcastBy The Deeper Thinking Podcast

            • 4
            • 4
            • 4
            • 4
            • 4

            4

            92 ratings


            More shows like The Deeper Thinking Podcast

            View all
            This American Life by This American Life

            This American Life

            90,966 Listeners

            Radiolab by WNYC Studios

            Radiolab

            44,003 Listeners

            Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

            Freakonomics Radio

            32,317 Listeners

            Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

            Hidden Brain

            43,561 Listeners

            Philosophize This! by Stephen West

            Philosophize This!

            15,240 Listeners

            The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

            The Gray Area with Sean Illing

            10,705 Listeners

            Philosophy Bites by Edmonds and Warburton

            Philosophy Bites

            1,543 Listeners

            Philosophy For Our Times by IAI

            Philosophy For Our Times

            320 Listeners

            The Daily by The New York Times

            The Daily

            113,344 Listeners

            The Indicator from Planet Money by NPR

            The Indicator from Planet Money

            9,575 Listeners

            Overthink by Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

            Overthink

            459 Listeners

            The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

            The Ezra Klein Show

            16,421 Listeners

            The Economics of Everyday Things by Freakonomics Network & Zachary Crockett

            The Economics of Everyday Things

            1,657 Listeners

            The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens

            The Telepathy Tapes

            8,891 Listeners

            Zero to Well-Read by Book Riot

            Zero to Well-Read

            591 Listeners