How Hamlet Overcame His Victim Mentality And Struck It Rich

Shakespeare adapts his plays to the new algorithm

After a long dark sleep, Shakespeare has woken up to the year 2022 and finds himself confronted with a strange new publishing algorithm: one that rejects complex characters with unsavory power motives and profound consciences, and stories filled with cut-throat politics, wicked satire, and heartbreaking tragedy. In other words, an algorithm that shouts a resounding NO to anything resembling the dark, real life we are all mired in. An algorithm that must positively promise the keys to success and health every second sentence without a trace of irony or shadow.

Now, Shakespeare being Shakespeare, will stop at nothing short of success and greatness. He will not settle for his Hamlets, Macbeths, Lady Macbeths, Richards, Henrys, Iagos, Lears, Shylocks, Antonys and Cleopatras to be rejected by bots and algorithms. Shakespeare has been going viral for 600 years, and he’s not about to settle for a small handful of encouraging clicks and claps.

Shakespeare will adapt to this strange new beast, whatever it is.

Instead of Richard III, he has now titled his famous disturbing classic about alienation, power, and tyranny:

How Richard III Learned To Love Himself.

Instead of Richard III’s dark famous lines:

“I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;”

Shakespeare has tweaked Richard’s painful confession into something far more palatable:

I, that hold the golden keys to going viral Losing excess weight and reassembling nature, Reformed, finished, ahead of my time Into this great New Age with my mind made up And that so happy and so fashionable That dogs lick my hand every time I walk by them

Richard III goes on to offer the 7 Best Habits of Successful Authors, promising the kingdom to his readers with impressive bullet-pointed lists that could only evoke the envy, greed, illusion, and desire of a million-strong platform of struggling writers living from paycheck to paycheck.

And Shakespeare was only getting warmed up.

Next came,

How Hamlet Overcame His Victim Mentality And Struck It Rich

Instead of that self-pitying loser who was thrown into existential paralysis by the murder of his father by his mother’s lover, Shakespeare deftly modified his tragic hero.

Instead of Hamlet’s dark reflections:

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die — to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;” Shakespeare has ditched these all too human lines for something far more victorious, superhuman, and delectable for the bots to circulate: To be successful, or to not be successful, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to shamelessly dangle the red meat of The Ten Habits Of The Wealthiest Writers, Or to declare war against losers with How I Went From Making $100 Per Month To $40,000 Per Month For My Online Plays. To win–to lose no more; and by win I also mean to rub it in. The heart-ache of losers living paycheck to paycheck and barely scraping by: to trample them with the success of me, myself and I. Now, this is precisely the sentiment and attitude that will make Shakespeare go viral in today’s market.

© Carlo Zeno 2022

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Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, check out two more satires from Illumination below: