I don't really listen to McElroy podcasts anymore but I do find myself rolling my eyes when people refer to their output as "the McElroy family media empire."

Like it's scary or something.

Tentative setup for the first map!

imagine vizier scheming but you think everyone else is just about as clever as you are, so all your hints and prodding are just way way too subtle. you're operating on ten levels of Vizinni's gambit but everyone else is at 1, so it just doesn't pan out. you're tryin to play 4D chess but you show up and the board is snakes & ladders.

you: "hoo hoo..... by wearing this silk shirt from the northern provinces, I'll give the impression that I'm in league with the baron there... when in fact my investments have all moved to the south!"

your political "rival": "wow nice shirt "

it's called "Let's Play Life"

it is a very long post that took multiple months to write. you can read it completely for free on my blog here: http://ellaguro.blogspot.com/2024/03/lets-play-life.html

here's a choice quote:

the internet has produced many things, but its driving force is cowardice. it's there in the collective failure to conceptualize how the things one does online manifest themselves in the larger world. it's there in the lionization of an almost spiritual level of intellectual laziness in the need to endlessly double down on whatever your personal brand becomes. it's there in the desire to tear down anyone who might attempt to shine a light on your own personal failures and limitations, in either your work or your larger perspective on the world. the internet is a refuge for the bad faith. it's a place to endlessly to celebrate your own fragility and inflexibility. it's a zone where we can magically reframe and hold up all our own failures of imagination as actually pretty fucking epic. to paraphrase something Matt Christman has often said: whatever happens, just say you've won. ultimately your own fantasy conception about what you're doing matters more than anything that might actually come out of it, especially if you've managed to successfully sell the importance of it to enough other people. we're all just performing elaborate shell games on each other in an attempt to feel better about ourselves.

if you enjoy it, please support me on patreon - i'm not in good financial shape right now. https://www.patreon.com/ellaguro

reposting this again as I've just finished reading it. truly profound, please take the time to read it