Everything That’s Making the Internet So Annoying Right Now, According to Madi Murphy

Madi Murphy has things to say about people on the internet. On the latest episode of The Bad Broadcast, she opened up the floor to listener submissions and voicemails on a topic she comes back to regularly: the genuinely baffling things people do online. 

And people had a lot to get off their chests. From the commenter who announces their credentials before dispensing unsolicited advice, to the couples who run joint prank accounts like it’s a career (it’s not), to the snark pages that have somehow convinced themselves they’re interesting. The episode is chock-full of cringe people trying to do their thing online, along with Murphy’s unfiltered responses, of course.

Bad Internet Behavior: Snark Pages, Couples Accounts, and Every Other Internet Sin

‘Dermatologist here’

You’ve seen it a thousand times. Someone posts a video, and within minutes a comment appears announcing the commenter’s profession before they weigh in with their take. Murphy gets why it’s annoying, but her bigger issue is that it’s almost certainly not true. Credentials in comment sections are unverifiable, and she’s not buying it. “If you are a successful anything, why are you wasting time in a comment section?” she says. “I just immediately think, oh, they’re just a troll, or that’s just a bot.” The professional qualifier doesn’t add authority, it just makes the comment easier to ignore.

The trend issue

This one clearly hit a nerve. Murphy went in on the way micro-trends have made it nearly impossible to figure out what you actually like, and how that’s bleeding into things that should be personal, like what you name your kid. She saw a TikTok asking what “we” are naming our baby boys this year and couldn’t get past it. “What are we naming our baby boys this year? What? What do you mean, what are we naming our baby boys?”

She’s not against trends in general, just the speed at which they cycle through and the way they flatten individual taste. Her bigger concern is what it’s doing to younger people who have grown up entirely inside the algorithm. “Sometimes when I talk to like, 12, 13, 14, 15 year-olds, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is just the internet. You’re saying internet phrases at me. You’re not even saying a sentence that you thought of.” The fix, she says, is simple and a little old-fashioned. Put the phone down, sit somewhere quiet, and figure out what you actually think.

Snark pages

Snark forums—and especially the people who repackage Reddit snark into TikTok content—aren’t just mean, they’re boring. The whole thing reads like a group of people who think they’re delivering devastating burns when they’re actually just exhausting. “They think that they are full of zingers and like gotcha moments. It is the most boring, tired, loser, everything I’ve ever seen in my life,” Murphy says.

And the TikTokers who summarize snark pages as their entire content strategy? That gets its own callout. “Have one ounce of creativity in your content. The only thing you know how to make is you’re summarizing a snark page. Get a life.” Her broader point is that snark assumes everyone is lying all the time, which makes it both predictable and deeply uncharitable. She’s seen it applied to creators who have been completely transparent about everything, and still can’t win.

On influencing

Murphy does push back hard on the people who sneer at influencers while quietly wanting to be one, a habit she admits to having herself in her earlier career. But she’s done with the performance of finding it cringe. Her actual opinion is that everyone should give it a shot.

“If it’s so easy and you’re so sure, and you have a phone and a personality and a brain, do it. Like, I don’t understand why you would not give it a shot,” she says.

She’s also tired of the idea that influencing requires a luxury backdrop. Some of her favorite accounts are completely ordinary people talking about normal budgets and daily routines, all while pulling millions of views doing it. “Normcore is what I look for in so many people that I follow,” she says. The barrier to entry is lower than people think, and the embarrassment people feel about trying is, in her view, the only thing actually standing in their way.

Husband-wife accounts

The joint couples account is a hard no for Murphy. The staged pranks, the manufactured drama, the “ruining our marriage” content—she’s having none of it. She’s fine with a partner making an occasional appearance, but the moment the account becomes about both of them equally, she’s out. “The minute I see so and so and so and so on a page, goodbye,” she says.

People who don’t read

A listener who works in social media called this one in, and it’s a grievance that anyone who has ever posted anything online will recognize immediately. People skip the caption, ignore the on-screen text, miss the entire point of the video, and then ask questions that were answered in the first five seconds. “Open your eyes, use your five senses to determine what’s happening,” Murphy quips. It’s a small thing, but it’s everywhere, and it makes comment sections almost useless.

You hate someone online and don’t block them…

If an influencer bothers you that much, why are you still there? Why the comment, the callout video, the screenshots sent to friends? Murphy adds her own take, saying that if you’re making content about someone, commenting on their posts, or sending their stuff around, you’re a fan. There’s no other word for it.

She shares that she recently came across a hate comment on a big influencer’s video and recognized the person who left it—someone she actually knows in real life. It caught her completely off guard. “In your mind you’re like, oh, the only people who do this are trolls, or weirdos or whatever. To see like a very normal person hating on this woman, I was like, hold on, we have really lost our way here,” she states.

Don’t apologize for saying ‘hi’ in the real world

The episode closes with a voicemail from an influencer making a request on behalf of creators everywhere: if you spot someone you follow out in the world, please don’t open with “I know this is so creepy.” It isn’t creepy—it’s normal. Following someone is literally what they’re asking you to do. Starting the interaction with an apology puts both people in an awkward spot and makes what should be a nice moment feel weird. A simple “hey, I follow you, love your content” is all it takes.

Murphy’s only two additions: come say hi, but don’t touch her, and don’t touch her kid. “Those are my two rules.”

To hear the full episode, listen to The Bad Broadcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Read More

• Scheana Shay Breaks Down the Bravo Betrayals, Mormon Mess, and MLB’s Accidental Confession
• The Reason You Keep Wanting to Throw Out Everything You Own
• Stop Waiting to Feel Ready to Enter the Job Market, Chances Are You’re Already There