David McElroy

Every time you get outraged, someone makes money — and someone gains power.

Your outrage has a market value to a lot of people. News media, social media companies, politicians. They wouldn’t be crass enough — or honest enough — to put it that way, but it’s the truth.

Did you see what [Fill in the Blank] did today? Doesn’t that infuriate you? Isn’t it terrible? Aren’t you angry about it?

It doesn’t matter what the subject is. It doesn’t matter whether the report is fair or honest. It doesn’t matter if it’s completely made up. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. All that matters is that you stay outraged — so the companies which make our mass media and social media can keep making money — and their political allies can use your outrage to seize more power over all of us

Why do you think you get these media services for free? It’s because you are their product. Social media companies and news media companies deliver your attention to advertisers. See? You are their product. As long as you’re paying attention, it doesn’t matter to them what you’re saying or thinking. They’re making money.

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This site has radically evolved over the last 15 years. With roughly 2,500 articles published in that time, it had become impossible for new readers to show up and hope to get a quick understanding of what I’m trying to do. As a result, I’ve finally published a new set of pages to act as a gateway for new readers.

At the top of the page, there’s a new link that says “New here?” which explains the basics of what I do on this site. On that page, there are links to six pages which categorize some of the major themes I’ve written about over the years.

Considering the sheer number of things I’ve written, the biggest problem that I had in creating this welcome section is that I honestly don’t remember most of what I’ve written. So the current choices might evolve as I remember things that would better represent the ideas I’m trying to write about.

If you have the time, I would appreciate it if those who already read the site will explore those welcome pages — to see if all the links work and whether you know of different articles which would be better choices than the ones I’ve chosen.

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I was an ambitious teen-ager. I later became an ambitious adult.

I wanted power and material success, but more than anything else, I wanted approval. I wanted praise. I needed people to be impressed with what I did and with what I achieved.

By the time I was about 15 or 16 years old, I wanted to be president of the United States. That wasn’t just an idle daydream. I had a written plan for each step of the way. John F. Kennedy had become president at the age of 43. My goal was to beat that — to become president even younger.

In my 20s, I wanted to build a media empire. No matter where I worked in the newspaper business, my mind was looking ahead to the day when I would own a massive media conglomerate — newspapers, television, movies and more.

The truth is that I didn’t want any of these things. Although I enjoyed publishing newspapers, I didn’t want to run a big business. And I didn’t want to do the deals and fundraising that would get me somewhere powerful as a politician.

I just wanted praise. I wanted applause. My ego was begging for approval.

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