HUMOR, KIND OF
National Geographic Fired All of Its Staff and Will Rely On Freelancers to Provide Trustworthy Content About Science Stuff
If you’re a science nerd living in your mom’s basement, this is your chance.
We here at National Geographic understand that you, our loyal readers, have relied on us for more than 100 years to provide thoughtful, well-written, and most importantly, trustworthy articles about the natural world.
Unfortunately, our parent company, Walt Disney Co., has determined that we can’t afford to do that anymore.
So we’ve decided to become a blog.
That’s right. Now anybody can write for National Geographic. Did you get at least a C+ in ninth-grade biology? Welcome!
The brain trust at Disney has decided that this is the answer to staunch the bleeding that is quality scientific reportage in a venerated magazine that people used to, and probably still do, collect.
Our mission statement is now:
‘To illuminate and protect the wonder of our world as cheaply as possible’
Please follow the guidelines on our website to submit material to our last two remaining full-time employees, who are working out of their cars in the parking lot at Disneyland.
It’s almost impossible to believe that NatGeo has more than 1.7 million subscribers [Ed. Note: including me, who just paid for a subscription literally two days ago GODDAMMIT] and still can’t afford to have actual, trained professionals write material and run the magazine.
But here we are.
There is no way that Disney is going to use any of that precious, precious Marvel money to provide educational material to the masses, most of whom now believe that raccoons can actually talk.
Our new creative director, Ashley, has spent almost a year on Instagram posting cat-eye tutorials from her bedroom and will be a welcome breath of fresh
Ashley will pepper the articles with random emojis that nobody over the age of 25 understands 🤔 and help us find free photographs on Unsplash to accompany the articles, like this one:
What is it? We have no idea because the staffer who knew all about bugs is applying for unemployment right now. But ain’t it cool? 😎
Trevor “Lefty” McGannon, who lost his hand taking a drunken bet that he could pet an alligator, will provide most of our reptilian content. Trevor lives in Florida next to a canal, along with his dog, Snack Size III, and we believe his personal experience will provide a much-needed contemporary element.
Nobody wants to read about mummies anymore. Enough with the mummies.
We fully expect that all magazines will soon follow a blogging model, which provides diversity and room for a wide variety of viewpoints.
Flat-earthers? There’s room for you, too. Half the time, we don’t even believe the earth is round.
Excited about finally getting a piece into The New Yorker? So is your neighbor, Brad, who’d love to talk to you about some interesting developments in crypto.
We might even put up a paywall and pay our writers a share of the monthly subscription price based on member reading time. We hear that works really well.
The biggest plus from Disney’s perspective, of course, is that by firing all the staffers and using only freelance writers, it won’t have to shell out 💵for pesky things like health insurance or retirement benefits. 💯
This month’s writing prompt is, “Chupacabra: Myth or Definitely Real Because My Cousin Saw One Once Behind His Trailer.”
Come with us as we voyage towards almost definitely not existing anymore within a year, tops.
If you enjoyed reading this article, please use my affiliate link to become a Medium member today and get unlimited access to everything I write! I’ll receive a portion of your monthly subscription fee at no additional cost to you.
I also have a Ko-fi account, a Patreon, or you can buy my dog a bone!
