Edgar Allan Poe purchased the Broadway Journal in 1845 and basically turned it into his own personal platform for cyberbullying other writers before the internet even existed.

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Edgar Allan Poe purchased the Broadway Journal in 1845 and basically turned it into his own personal platform for cyberbullying other writers before the internet even existed. He was incredibly jealous of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's massive mainstream success and used his newfound editorial power to launch a relentless, obsessive smear campaign accusing Longfellow of blatant plagiarism. Poe’s unhinged rants alienated almost all of his subscribers, tanked the publication's reputation, and caused the magazine to go entirely bankrupt in less than a year. The master of macabre literature essentially speed-ran the modern influencer cycle of buying a platform, using it to aggressively cancel a rival, and immediately destroying his own career in the process