Oprah’s early ambition drew elite media contempt that dismissed her viewers as lonely losers.

Evidence

Even now the scale of Winfrey’s ambitions was clear. She told Spy magazine, “I knew I’d be a millionaire by the time I turned 32.” The Spy reporter could not believe his luck: “She told me this in the first hour I spent with her. By the second hour she had added, puffing up with purpose, ‘I certainly intend to be the richest black woman in America. I intend to be a mogul.’ ” Her evident ambition invited some fairly sharp jabs in the early days. A New York Times Magazine cover piece entitled “The Importance of Being Oprah” took a dim view of her program, suggesting it was popular because it made white viewers feel better about themselves. It further derided her viewers as, in effect, losers, those “lonely and uninstructed” who “draw sustenance from her, from the flickering presence in their living rooms they call a friend.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 788

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of media elite dismissing mass-audience formats, echoing the earlier lowbrow-culture critiques of radio and tabloid press in this book.