EJ Marcus on digital habits: from AIM away messages to algorithmic scrolling
Comedian and writer EJ Marcus reflects on how the internet’s early, playful corners still shape the way they show up online today. Their story jumps from AIM away messages and Club Penguin avatars to the strange logic of TikTok’s For You Page, mixing personal anecdotes with deliberate rules they’ve adopted for life in the feed.
Early experiences leave lasting traces
Marcus argues that the platforms we grew up on quietly set habits that survive platform shifts. Little rituals — choosing a username, swapping an avatar, writing a goofy away message — taught them how attention and identity work online. Those small feedback loops rewarded experimentation and shaped what felt like “performing” selfhood in public. Over time, the same instincts that made a witty handle or an offbeat status glow on AIM now collide with opaque recommendation systems that amplify certain behaviors and bury others.
Favorites, filters and intentional scrolling
Marcus keeps a short, purposeful app list. They favor tools that encourage creativity or lower friction: Pinterest for calmer inspiration, eBay for secondhand wardrobe treasure hunts, apartments.com for practical house-hunting. Fast-moving feeds get tight time limits; messaging apps live behind layered filters and scheduled inbox-clearing rituals. Private “Finsta” accounts are for close friends, and Do Not Disturb is an essential setting for protecting real-life presence.
Beyond convenience, their app choices reflect a philosophy: use algorithms where they help, limit them where they hijack attention. Passive feeds face strict boundaries; messaging stays semi-private. The end result is a digital life that leans toward intention rather than accidental exposure.
Curating a low-industry feed
One of Marcus’s more deliberate moves is to unfollow industry chatter and follow things that feel restorative — rescuing animal pages, small conservation accounts, candid nature photos with imperfect captions. These accounts don’t try to sell you anything or hijack your outrage; they offer quietness and curiosity. The strategy is simple: reward plain, human posts, and let the algorithm mirror that preference. Over time their feed fills with fewer hot takes and more moments that actually feel like relief.
Identity experiments that stuck
Marcus remembers the pixelated worlds of early social spaces as laboratories for identity. Choosing a penguin on Club Penguin or composing an away message on AIM could produce intense, joyful recognition — what they call moments of “gender euphoria.” Those formative experiments mattered: small social validations built habits of self-presentation that persist when platforms get noisier and more consequential.
Algorithmic detours and unintended exposure
Algorithms don’t always respect intention. Marcus once watched their For You Page fill with content about Scientology despite never searching the topic. Brief, accidental interactions nudged the recommendations, surfacing themes they didn’t want. To cope, Marcus mutes or hides rather than always unfollows, and leans on private sharing for candid material. These are pragmatic tactics for a messy reality: routine, modest actions can steer recommendation systems in surprising directions.
Viral moments, DMs and the intimacy paradox
Not every surprise was unwelcome. A small batch of tweets and a “cool L.A. dad” TikTok persona gave Marcus bursts of attention that changed their trajectory. Parallel to public virality is the steady stream of direct messages — confessional notes from strangers, requests for advice, messages that feel private though they come from total strangers. Marcus sees these DMs as evidence of a broader intimacy paradox: platforms let strangers feel close, but that closeness isn’t always healthy or reciprocal.
Digital etiquette: replacing lazy shorthand with rituals
Marcus objects to offhand language that flattens historical or medical trauma into cheap jokes. Instead of reflexive shorthand — the throwaway one-liners that erode nuance — they favor rituals that restore meaning: thoughtful birthday posts, deliberate celebrations, and small gestures that signal care. These practices, Marcus believes, rebuild communal bonds and push back against performative brevity.
Practical takeaways for creators, teams and platforms
Many of Marcus’s choices are measurable and scalable:
– Track follow/unfollow events and watch how feed composition shifts.
– Measure time-on-platform differences between curated, low-signal feeds and noisy, high-signal ones.
– Test identity features with cohorts; monitor retention, sentiment, and repeat customization.
– Combine quantitative metrics (CTR, session length, DAUs) with qualitative feedback to spot both healthy engagement and harmful churn.
Marcus argues that the platforms we grew up on quietly set habits that survive platform shifts. Little rituals — choosing a username, swapping an avatar, writing a goofy away message — taught them how attention and identity work online. Those small feedback loops rewarded experimentation and shaped what felt like “performing” selfhood in public. Over time, the same instincts that made a witty handle or an offbeat status glow on AIM now collide with opaque recommendation systems that amplify certain behaviors and bury others.0
A quieter internet, deliberately built
Marcus argues that the platforms we grew up on quietly set habits that survive platform shifts. Little rituals — choosing a username, swapping an avatar, writing a goofy away message — taught them how attention and identity work online. Those small feedback loops rewarded experimentation and shaped what felt like “performing” selfhood in public. Over time, the same instincts that made a witty handle or an offbeat status glow on AIM now collide with opaque recommendation systems that amplify certain behaviors and bury others.1