ANY SEMBLANCE TO REAL LIFE IS MERE COINCIDENCE

Humorless Pub Soft Bans Parodies

All the characters in this story are purely fictional

A writing platform called Beef Steak (to be taken with a grain of salt). Photo by Madie Hamilton on Unsplash

In a galaxy far away, on a planet called Better Internet, there was a massive online writing platform called Beef Steak that served hundreds of different planets in its orbit.

Speech was free on this platform, and all genres were acceptable.

Poets got the same respect as Data Scientists. Humorists were paid the same as humorless advice columnists. Impoverished meta writers were paid the same as stoic tech bros living in million dollar flats.

Laughter was legal.

Until it wasn’t. One day Beef Steak’s Chief Executive Officer wondered out loud why it was that everybody who wasn’t a data scientist lived in an echo chamber.

He then announced that only Data Scientists would now be earning real dollars while the rest of the zoo could fight over pennies.

And he didn’t stop there. Next, he announced he would be paying smart-ass meta writers who dared to poke fun at Beef Steak’s policies, image, flavor, thickness, or…