The Way of the Scroll

The Archetypes of Successful Posters

Over twelve years posting on the internet for attention—and a decade of doing it professionally—I’ve thought constantly about why people react to certain posts and posters, and why they ignore the rest. I’ve dedicated nearly 100 episodes of

The Carousel

to talking to successful posters about what they do, yet I’m still no closer to the answer. Why do random accounts without specific beats or skillsets, say Paul Skallas or Mike Cernovich, rise to the top, while most of us languish in obscurity?

The first thing brands, and most individuals, want in today’s world is to go viral, to gain followers, to be the center of the online conversation. Yet so rarely are they able to achieve it—at least on purpose—despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying.

This article pokes at the reasons why.

I’ve been hosting Twitter Spaces after the NFL playoff games. An odd form of media. Anyone can join, they remain anonymous besides their voice, but to participate they must request the microphone from the ho…