Fall on your face but recover successfully, and you'll be better off than ever before!! Sounds absurd, right? But if my House of Cards had not fallen over in 2021, I would never have been able to create a completely new approach to communicating about politics over the internet!
In 2021, I experienced the biggest personal and professional failure of my life (the downfall of my email fundraising company, and along with it my own personal collapse). So today, I'm highly motivated to do things very differently than ever before.
By Mike Reid | May 2025
Been on Facebook lately?
Or, Instagram?
Or....X?
Or pretty much any online news site?
They're, ummmm, they're not what they used to be, huh?
Something's changed, don't you think?
By now, you've noticed that basically all of the digital content we're consuming on the internet is subpar....or worse, right?
And maybe things were never perfect, but like a lobster in a pot of water that gets progressively hotter, this is not at all what we were promised when we all signed up in the first place, is it?
If only we'd known back THEN where we'd be TODAY, we'd all have made some very different choices, right? (At least I would have.)
Joy-Dense (adj):
Delighting and surprising, exceeding expectations as many times as possible.
But my own digital expertise wasn't in social media or online news.
I was never a journalist, or an Instagram influencer.
My expertise was never cool.
My digital expertise — the thing I became exceptionally good at in the 2010s and achieved big professional success in before it all came crashing down in 2021 — was in a particularly devious digital niche.
My expertise was in....political fundraising emails.
"It's RED ALERT at Democratic HQ and if you don't send us $5 right now, democracy is over and we're all totally fucked."
That kind of shit.
And I was so goddamn good at it.
I spent many years of my life becoming unusually good at it.
I was so good at it that after working for someone else's company, I quit and I started my own company, and at our peak I had over 25 full-time employees, all paid for by stoking fear and anger and anxiety over the internet — because in politics you're allowed to say anything, and throwing negative emotions raises a lot more money.
I thought the end (defeating Trump in 2020) justified the means.
And we did defeat Trump. (In 2020...)
But after the 2020 election was over and things got tougher, and my company was running out of cash, and I was struggling to make payroll, I demanded we ramp up the negativity to an 11 — because I wanted to keep growing and it was a terrible time to fire people.
But in 2021, my House of Cards still came crashing down.
And instead of accepting defeat, I blamed and shamed others in a desperate effort not to lose everything.
I hardened myself because I thought failure would be the absolute worst thing possible — but I lost my humanity in the process and ultimately that was way worse for everyone.
And so I was cast in the role of Frank Underwood by a journalist who was trying her very best to succeed in her own digital career.
Every so often there's a story written about how email fundraising works behind the scenes — and it's never complimentary — but mine was mostly a devastating assessment of just how terrible a boss I was in 2021.
In beautiful poetic justice, what I put out into the world I got back.
Because every story needs a good villain, right? (Especially in 2021.)
Of course, at this point almost everyone agrees that political emails are basically spam — except for the people still sending them.
And everyone agrees that Joe Biden's decision to run again in 2024 was a huge mistake — except, of course, for the people still working at the DNC (the people still running the Democratic Party).
And we all know that the best days of Facebook, and Instagram, and X (obviously) are behind us, not ahead of us — except for the people still working at all those social media companies.
And maybe you've even realized that online news can't prioritize being a profitable business and delivering high-quality news — so all the news sites keep you coming back because of algorithms that curate which articles you see based on what drives the most clicks, not based on what's responsible journalism (but obviously the New York Times can't acknowledge that publicly).
More of the same.
Something completely different.
So, it's time for something completely different and we all know it.
But the problem is: What exactly does something completely different even look like, how do we build it, and who wants to go first, right?
And what an exciting puzzle to solve!
Because the moment is finally here.
We finally get to start from scratch again, and experience the thrill of being beginners in a brand new game, in better game, in a game that we can all win by collaborating together.
The time has come for us to transition away from digital platforms that sap our energy, and to stop stuffing our human creativity into boxes that work well for the platforms — but not for the creators.
The time has come for us to reject digital platforms that pit human against human, because that's what sells the most ads (and makes the most money for the shareholders, who are already rich).
The time has come to make each other laugh and smile, and to not take things on the internet quite so seriously anymore.
Principles:
Start with the goal to do it better than ever before.
Financial strength for all involved.
Take unusually good care of your people.
Collaborate in flow.
Empower others to lead.
Evolve to meet a rapidly changing world.
Change your perspective.
This very NOW is the moment for creatives, and innovators, and the leaders of the future to curate our own plots of digital land, in styles that are unique to each of us.
(So, the site we'd build together for you need not look AT ALL like this one, because your excitement will lead us through the design process, and isn't that exciting to think about?!)
The internet can and will become infinitely better — just as soon as we get off the broken platforms and create something new.
So, what are you waiting for?!
Let's do it! Let's build something better than ever — together.