Open The Chumbox
While I was trying to google “How to watch the GGG-Canelo Alvarez fight for free” this afternoon, Claire, the clerk, walked into my office and asked if we could buy some plants.
“No,” I said.
“Why not?” She asked.
“Because we can’t afford a copy editor, and without a copy editor, who is going to water the plants?”
“I’ll water the plants,” she said.
“Are you a copy editor?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
“Then it won’t work. You will keep them alive while you are here, but then you’ll get sick or go on vacation and the plants will die. A copy editor would harass someone into watering the plants even if they were not here, and people would do it because copy editors can get people to do things they don’t want to do. It’s like a super power they have.”
“Why don’t we start publishing things behind the paywall and then we will have the money to hire a copy editor?” Claire asked.
“Hah! That won’t work. It’s a catch-22.” I said, “You can’t put things behind a paywall if you don’t copy edit them. Nobody is going to pay to read a bunch of comma splices, mispellings, punctuation errors, and fucked up dialogue. Before you can ask people to pay for things you have to at least get rid of the egregious errors. Anyone here want to do that?”
I raised my voice for the last questions so that I was sure Pee Wee and the folks down the hall in editorial could hear me. I knew they could because they listen to all of my conversations through the access I gave my phone’s microphone on Instagram. Pee Wee didn’t even look up from his Korean newspaper. Claire was about to say something, but then good sense got a hold of her and she ate what she was about to say. I think she learned her lesson at the last staff meeting when she said, “I know how to make a pivot table.”
“Besides,” I said, “Dreck wants to be free.” Then I thought, “That should be a pull-quote.”
Dreck wants to be free.
“That’s a really shitty pull-quote,” Claire said.
“Well, when you have no editorial restraint, dreck happens. This post right here is like pure publishing Id. Such nonsense has a place in the world, and that place is outside the paywall. Do you want more reasons why we won’t join the Partnership Program?”
“Holy shit,” she said, “You’ve used me as a foil to introduce a listicle, haven’t you? Please don’t do that Humpty-Dumpty thing. It isn’t funny, it makes no sense, and it is kind of creepy.”
“But what is a listicle?” asked Alice.
“It’s another portmanteau,” said Humpty-Dumpty, “just like ‘slithy’ and ‘mimsy.’”
“But what does it mean?” asked Alice.
“Well, the two words are ‘lips’ and ‘testicle.’ You know what testicles are, don’t you?” the old egg said with a lear.
“I’m afraid I do,” said Alice.
“I agree it would be a mistake,” I said. “On with the listicle!”
Ten Reasons Why Mr. Mildew Omnimedia Won’t Be Moving Behind the Paywall
- Dreck wants to be free.
- Most dreck is stolen from Chinese Gutbloom (Currently being held hostage by H. Nemesis Nyx). Charging for stuff that you don’t have the copyright to is like viagra for lawyers. Wait, it’s 2017. Let me rephrase that. It’s like viagra for male lawyers. For female lawyers it’s like a day off, a glass of wine, a hot bath… and something, something, something (it’s all kind of mysterious). For the record, even Pee Wee is stolen. My friend Bev Hsiao’s aunt Lillian had a flunky named Pee Wee.
- If we charge for copy, it gives librarians an opportunity to cancel their subscription when we publish the “Women in Swim Fins and Football Helmets” issue. It’s not that I mind them cancelling, or pro-rating their subscription to Cat Obsession (which is where we publish the special issues called “Swim Fins & Football Helmets” and “Wet Suits on Dry Sheets”), it’s that I can’t stand the sanctimonious screeds we have to publish in the letter’s section for four months after they cancel.
- We are interested in expanding our media empire into foreign markets; specifically Brazil and the Philippines. Our fiduciary “futurists” say that Brazil is about six months ahead of the United States on the “progression to a failed state” continuum, and the Philippines is eight months ahead of Brazil. Our good friend and mentor, Mac McCarty, has made it quite clear that the Tagalog words for “Paywall” are “Fuck, No”.
- All of the good dreck is behind us. The best of our efforts are in the back catalog. There is even a better version of this post from two years ago, but it only got 5 “recommends” back when recommends were free. You know what the difference is between dog shit on the sidewalk and dog shit that has been scooped up into a plastic bag and put into a trash can? Answer: You don’t see the dog shit in the plastic bag. Did that work? Does that metaphor work? No? They can’t all be winners, you know.
- There was a time in the go-go .com boom when I made real cash money writing PHP pages to put on shitty corporate “brochureware” websites. I didn’t write much PHP, really, rather I hacked up PHP that I scraped off of bulletin boards. I am not kidding when I say that I owe part of my house and family health to developers who give shit away for free because there is a “tradition” of collaboration among software developers. It would take a lot of code monkeys really enjoying what I write to make up for that debt.
- If I go behind the paywall, Tom Mitchell might find me, and not only do I owe him a lot of money, I would have to explain and apologize for the whole incident with the fax machine.
- We don’t have to worry about money because we are being underwritten by the Russians. You don’t want to take Russian money and then try to cheat them. If you do, they might make you run for office. How do you think I got bullied into running for Mayor?
- Behind the paywall, they expect ten items in the listicle when you have a subhead that starts “Ten reasons…” Furthermore, they expect a proper “button”. Amanda Rosenberg told me that the last item is supposed to be the “button” because if the whole thing ends weakly then people are left disappointed and start wondering what the fuck they just read and why the fuck they were reading it.
“That is maybe the shittiest listicle in the history of listicles,” Claire said.
“Let me get out my checkbook,” I said, “… and write you a refund.”
“You’re just afraid to try,” she said.
I knew this was coming. I’ve been swatting this one away my whole life.
“Why did the Lord give us agility, If not to evade responsibility?”
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s from Ogden Nash. It would make a good pull-quote, wouldn’t it? A button of a pull quote.”
Why did the Lord give us agility
If not to evade responsibility?
— — Ogden Nash
“Well, can we at least run the chumbox?” She asked. “The Russians can’t object to that. If we raise a little bit of money, maybe we can buy some plants.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “The only thing worse than a page with a chumbox, is a page with a fake chumbox.”
