march 2026

can a post ever truly be random?

I miss the randomness of the old internet. Very dearly. But I don't think this is an uncommon sentiment among many who have been connecting online before the proliferation of smartphones, apps, and algorithms. We used to "surf" the web, not "scroll". Logging on was a literal adventure.

Random: something that exists without pattern, without intention—just happening, for no reason at all.

The first "social network" I ever used was oddly Youtube. Youtube is a site whose randomness knows no limits. Out of that randomness is how we got a plethora of viral moments that often times went on to become real-world trends. I know the algorithm has neutered the site significantly, but I'll talk about that likely in the future.

I will never forget The Harlem Shake. "Harlem Shake" is an electronic dance track released by Baauer in 2012. Many in the dance scene describe this specific genre as "bass music" with a lot of trap percussion and drums. To your everyday mainstream music listener, it's very wonky due to its outlandishness in production. It can be brash. Keep in mind trap was only just beginning to really catch on at that time. It was an extremely novel and gripping sound back then. Lots of electronic sounding beeps mixed with dance and hip hop influenced drum beats. To me, the greatest shit of all time. To most others? Meme music. Annoying. Grating (I'll never forget how the internet massacred Cbat's reputation some years ago). Something you put on just cause it sounds funny and you want to make a video of you and your friends dancing stupid to it. Well the track went on to become a viral hit online in early 2013, and the grip it had on the internet for a short period of time was such a spectacle for 16 year old me. The confluence of two things I loved at that time was so awesome to watch unfold together. A lighthearted cringey viral moment in time inspired by a genre of music that was really just starting to become popular in the mainstream. All spawned online together at the same time.

It was random. But also not really? Creators like Filthy Frank, now known as Joji, had a genius idea early on in the trend. In fact, they were the trendsetters. The idea? Dress up in funny costumes and dance as ridiculously as you could. No message. No purpose. In fact, being random was the entire goal. The more random you could be, the funnier the video would be. The more successful the video could be. So of course within a couple weeks every workplace, school, agency, club, organization, and ANY AND ALL GROUPS OF PEOPLE all over the world were shaking their asses to the Harlem Shake on Youtube.

A trend birthed in randomness wasn't actually that random. But it was that same randomness that acted as an open invitation for the world to join in on the party. For a very brief moment in time, it felt like a viral moment actually did a successful job at crossing the chasm that separates screen and the real world. It's not like viral moments were something brand new. I mean just a couple years before the Harlem Shake, everyone was planking for... some reason? But it was still rare at that time for a viral moment to get big enough where almost every institution you could think of participated in the trend.

So it begs the question I posed in the title of this post: Can a post ever truly be random?

Yes, this is postingrandomshit.com. But I'm sorry to admit that nothing on this website is really that random. Maybe at times the feeling of randomness is evoked, but I struggle with pure randomness. It may be why I try to attach meaning to so many different things in my life. Including things that often times aren't supposed to really have much meaning. The carousels I've been making for the past 5.5 years I think are my way of prescribing meaning to a bunch of media that are randomly tied together in some HTML box. It's nothing new, it's collaging. Mixed media to be exact.

Of course posts can be random. It probably depends on how far your boundaries within the definition of the word random really lie. A hypothetical online post created using some RNG sorting program that randomly generates your content (in whatever form/application/site you create it for) I guess is objectively random? I mean the thought to CREATE something random wouldn't really be a random creative pursuit, even if the final product ultimately is on paper. But at the end of the day the audience of said post defines for themselves if it is random or not. Because even if the post itself is random, the feelings and emotions conveyed to each person will vary and be subjective.

Take the post I uploaded a week ago, this is a pointless post. When making it, I didn't really ascribe much of a literal meaning to the post as a whole. I knew I just wanted media that evoked very specific emotions. The same emotions I felt when I was stringing them together on my computer. I wanted media that felt so pointless while at the same time very open to interpretation due to how pointless they were. I wanted to sprinkle in a little bit of ambiguous social commentary through the liminality of a lot of the content within the post. Something that felt very familiar to view, but off putting at the same time. Not necessarily uncomfortable, but not all that comforting either. And just because I love surrealism so much, the entire post is surreal in its essence. For me, it felt strange making this carousel- and I hope it was just a strange swiping through it. The song Aquarius by Boards of Canada I think does a really good job at evoking that exact feeling.

If you remember the first Transformers by Michael Bay, then you may recall Bumblebee communicated in the movies via a car radio using snippets of broadcasts (do not judge me for that reference- I swear those movies had some of the best sound design I've ever heard in any piece of media). But that's probably the best way I can equate how I construct my own carousels. Stringing together pieces of media to ultimately communicate something. But that "something" doesn't really need to have much literal meaning sometimes. Sometimes it's just an emotion or feeling.

I know, you are rolling your eyes reading this now because I'm kind of just over-glorifying running a mood board. But I honestly feel I've become so much more cohesive with my process over the years and I love doing it more than ever. I've been really wanting to expand outside of carousels and mess with video content as well. But most of all, I want to start sharing the stuff I create in the real-world too. Not just on my computer. I do so much beyond just posting to Instagram and I think a lot of it is worth sharing ♥️

Also shout outs to this being the very first blog post I've ever made!! I can't promise consistency, but I can promise that if you join my newsletter below, you are guaranteed to not miss out when I do post, randomly.