The internet is full of people claiming to know everything about anything.
But what’s it like for a real expert when his core topic never leaves the headlines?
Patrick De Haan may be better known by his online handle: @GasBuddyGuy. He posts daily updates and interpretations of changing gas prices to his 250,000 followers across X, BlueSky and Threads.
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The accounts started as the simplest way to share insights and analyses learned over two decades as a petroleum analyst. But they have turned him into a media expert whose insights have had (according to his website) almost 200 billion impressions.
“I’ve been doing this now and writing about energy prices for over 20 years. I used to have a blog that I’d write,” De Haan told Straight Arrow. “I mean, you learn something new every day.”
Gas prices have been on everyone’s mind since the U.S. first attacked Iran in February.
“I don’t know that I’ve had much work-life balance for the last six-and-a-half months,” De Haan said.
The responsibilities of an information influencer
De Haan has a strong commitment to explaining gas price changes for a general audience.
“I try to share the information that I understand, that I’ve done the research on, in hopes that it will help educate other people,” he told Straight Arrow. “There’s a lot of myths in the oil industry and the refining industry and how gas prices work, because it’s such a misunderstood category.”
READ MORE: What 50 years of oil shocks explain about the future of gas prices
De Haan said he is sometimes worried about being replaced by less-experienced creators or AI. But he doesn’t let that bother him too much. He thinks he’s able to have a human touch alongside his deep resources and research. He worries more about AI’s ability to “create false experts — that cite its data without grasping what AI’s motive might be.”
Social media’s algorithm dynamics are also a concern, he said.
“There’s a lot of people sharing information that may not be accurate,” he said. And once something scary is out there, it’s hard to retract, he said.
“One of those examples being the headlines in the recent week about diesel supplies — and somebody shared two photos of gas stations that had run out of diesel.”
“Unfortunately, I think the accounts that would counteract that — the accounts or other experts — may not have the voice that some of these accounts do that elicit very strong emotional responses from people,” he said.
Choosing truth over bias
De Haan is also concerned about people who follow their political bias and ignore facts. This can be especially tempting in his field, because gas prices are connected to emotional issues. Sure, they’re a result of politics, but the cost of gas deeply affects things like grocery prices, family life and whether people get to work.
“There’s a lot of people very anxious and in fear of what’s going to happen with this entire geopolitical situation,” he said. “I try to provide people information in which they can check and balance themselves if they need to.”
He’s concerned that people don’t take the time to understand facts before responding.
“If I post something about gas prices going up, right now, people who would align with the political right are very upset — they seek to shift blame elsewhere,” he said. “And inevitably, when I start posting about prices going down, then the left side of the aisle may be upset.”
Some facts are particularly thorny. People have questioned his bias for suggesting that “Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries are impacting diesel prices,” he said.
“Because they might not necessarily want to hear that it’s not the Trump administration’s so-called fault.”
Rather, he said, it is likely part of Ukraine’s military strategy. “That is probably why Ukraine is attacking Russian refineries, so that it can be noticed by other countries. And so other countries then put pressure on Russia to stop.”
On the other side of the aisle, he has found right-leaning folks are less willing to engage with his posts about the impact of the U.S. war with Iran or the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. “One of the biggest, the largest impacts has been the U.S and its determination and attack on Iran,” he told Straight Arrow. “And obviously, that’s very political.”
After years of believing that a U.S. president can’t really affect gas prices, De Hann said he’s had to change his tune.
“That’s kind of a big part of this is that we are here now because the U.S. actions caused a responding reaction by Iran, which closed the Strait of Hormuz, which impacted prices,” he said. “Analysts such as myself, who had correctly previously said that a president has very limited impact, we’ve had to hone our messaging because we never expect the unexpected.”
Keyboard warriors
De Haan doesn’t do video, but he’s on the three major micro-blogging platforms.
“What’s interesting to me is I can feel that there is a difference in the audience between those three platforms.” So he occasionally tailors his message to each one, “because I don’t necessarily want to deal with a tremendous amount of misinterpretation of my information.”
That misinterpretation has real consequences. With everything going on in the world, De Haan is receiving more and more media attention — and, sometimes, death threats.
“It can be very time-consuming. There can be very long days. And obviously, you know, there’s a mental burden of trying to draw boundaries around it,” he said.
But he tries to answer and engage with anyone who replies to his posts in good faith, in order to help them understand what’s going on. He earns a paycheck from his regular job and doesn’t make money from his accounts, so he’s glad to not face the financial stresses that many influencers do.
“At the end of the day, my follower count doesn’t really matter to me. I guess I’m more passionate about just sharing the information that I am getting,” he said. “I always try to entertain people that I feel are approaching me, you know, with openness and would like to understand. I’ll always try to get to those kinds of responses.”
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