Unbearable Lightness of Gullibility
Move over, Milan Kundera
So you want to be a Top Writer? repeated the Fox to the room full of Asses.
We don’t want to hear how you are making two dollars a day,
stressed the Fox to the classroom of wide-eyed Asses.
Honesty is boring and doesn’t bring the clicks and claps.
Clearly it never occurred to these earnest Asses that they could simply lie.
If you want to make an Ass clap, you must boast of earning thousands.
The Fox’s philosophy was a sort of shock and awe method through telling whoppers.
The bigger the whopper, the more an Ass would open its mouth in awe.
When letting rip your little listicles, make sure your 7 Steps to Success are always ascending.
Asses want to feel they are ascending and climbing new heights. Asses want to believe they can fly.
Have you ever seen a flying Ass? Doesn’t matter. It’s the idea that sells. Asses want to feel happy.
Happiness sells because most Asses are depressed. Depression will be the manure that grows your following.
The class of Asses were all eyes and ears. The Fox was enjoying the sound of his own voice and the mendacity of his metaphors.
Now let me get down to brass tacks, said this fiery Fox to his class of click-happy, clapping Asses,
carefully laying his most ingenious trap: I am a Top Writer, and I make $40,000 per story.
My stories are always curated, manicured, marinated, percolated, pedicured, algorithm-cured and highlighted.
I make even the bots envious. You must get over this idea of ethics and merit and talent and originality,
and, most of all, honesty. Nobody wants to hear how you lost your spouse to Covid,
or how you work at Amazon for minimum wage, or about the fact you are a homeless Ass.
The only thing any writer wants to read these days is about an Ass who flies first class.
And so the class came to a finish, and the Fox had a whole internet full of clicking and clapping Asses.
© Carlo Zeno 2022 _______________________
Thank you for reading, and thank you to Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg) for promoting the endangered species of satire in an age of bots and algorithms. The above is part 3 of a young trilogy. You can see part 1 and 2 below. If you’d like to support my work, consider buying me a coffee, or just click and clap and jump up and down. Thank you again. 🙏