Aug 11, 2026
Who-or what-are you online? A profile, handle, podcast, avatar, or AI persona can be addressed, remembered, praised, criticised, and made socially present. But it is not quite identical to the person behind it.
This episode of Permanently Moved is an hour-long audio essay on digital identity, personal branding, social media, puppetry, platform culture, and AI. It argues that online identity is best understood not as performance or authenticity, but as animation: a figure brought to life through an operator, audience, and apparatus.
Moving from The Brand Called You and main character energy to Bunraku theatre, VTubers, icons and idols, automata, platform metrics, and ChatGPT, Jay Springett asks what it means to be responsible for a figure online without being consumed by it.
SHOW NOTES
https://thejaymo.net/2026/08/11/303-internet-operator-permanently-moved/
START SELECT RESET
Issue 16 of Start Select Reset, the print companion to this episode, contains the full essay plus extra material not included in the audio.
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CHAPTERS
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:01:06) DRAMATIS IDEAE
(00:02:20) Part 1. The Brand Called You
(00:09:34) Part 2. Main Character Energy
(00:16:21) Part 3. Figure and Function
(00:20:42) Part 4. The Booth and the Stage
(00:26:43) Part 5. The Suppressed Metaphor
(00:32:16) Part 6. The Animated Equation
(00:38:25) Part 7. The Face, the Mask, the Person
(00:40:47) Part 8. Metonymy, Icon, Idol
(00:46:16) Part 9. The Self-Moving Figure
(00:53:25) Part 10. Where the Operator Stands
(00:58:24) Part 11. The Speaking Image
(01:04:34) Part 12. Internet Operator
(01:08:03) Afterward
(01:08:44) Support the Show
(01:09:29) Credits
Mentioned in this episode
Tom Peters — “The Brand Called You”
Teri Silvio — Puppets, Gods and Brands
Kevin Munger — “The YouTube Apparatus”
Henryk Jurkowski — Aspects of Puppet Theatre
Charles Taylor
Heinrich von Kleist — “On the Marionette Theatre”
Mindar at Kōdai-ji
ChatGPT
Gordon White
Permanently Moved is a quarterly podcast written, recorded, and edited by Jay Springett.