Now Introducing: LackJaw, A Publication For Rejected Submissions To SlackJaw
Is this affiliated with SlackJaw? If by “affiliated with” you mean “rejected by,” then yes
There is no greater publication on Medium than SlackJaw. They produce the best content, they are the only reason the $5 a month subscription fee is worth it, and they accept roughly 15% of submissions. I have personally submitted to them more than seven times, meaning I should have had a 105% chance of getting accepted by now.
My math assistant has just informed me that this is not how math works.
I am not the first who has struggled with their editorial process. Kristine Laco is another humor writer I once believed to be a kindred spirit…until she committed the ultimate betrayal and got accepted into SlackJaw. The nerve.
I thought that a good first introduction to LackJaw would be a new article I am working on: A New COVID-19 Variant Called Sigma Only Kills Beta Males. Unfortunately, I realized this is a pretty clear violation of their guidelines.
I may post one of my earliest rejections, Why Alex Baia Is The Greatest Human Being In Existence…no, that’s not a joke, I actually did…but I don’t think their lead editor, Alex Baia, appreciated it. In fact, part of the appeal of the made-up name “Kurt Shiba Inu” is that it allowed me to hide from Alex Baia’s wrath after that submission.
Pitches
What I’m going to say is pretty obvious, so obvious that it hardly needs to be said, but I will say it anyway: The most universal form of humor is tech jargon. I tested this on a fairly large audience, sampling my article “If You Hired Me, Your Interview Process Is Garbage.” It received universal acclaim from my test audience.
Wow, I actually understood that.
— My mom
This is a satirical tech article someone else wrote that recently went viral, a short piece about coding that argued for not writing code. It was, again, satirical…and the tech community LOST ITS DAMN MIND. It racked 130 comments, half of which were enraged, with readers calling the writer unqualified, an inconsequential child, and in one case even stating that the article made them consider suicide.
So yeah.
Tech humor is where it’s at right now and I have more or less built my entire blog on it.
I am considering diversifying, though. For example, you know dating? It’s really hard, right?
Yeah. So that’s an idea. If you are having trouble with Tinder, it’s because you accidentally selected Impossible in the difficulty settings. On second thought, maybe that one will go into LackLackJaw, a publication I am going to make for rejected ideas for rejected submissions to SlackJaw.
Okay, so you know how when you’re at the grocery store, sometimes you try really hard to eat healthy and then kind of give up halfway through? That’s the real joke.
My life is the real joke here.
Sorry, what were we talking about again?
Why Have My SlackJaw Submissions Gotten Rejected?
I have done extensive research as a longtime reader, and I have noticed a pretty common trend among SlackJaw articles.
In general, they tend to be fairly well-written.
I know what you’re thinking — that’s pretty surprising. Generally speaking, the point of blogging is to try to churn out as much content as humanly possible with as little effort as possible. Writing should be done while running, or driving (a self-driving car, of course, which you have purchased with your blog earnings), or frantically boarding a bus. It should not be spell checked, edited, or grammarly’d…that would be a distraction from the writing #hustle.
But, for better or worse, this formula does not seem to work on SlackJaw.
Pitch Idea, Take Two
Hey, you know what? Maybe I’ll submit THIS to SlackJaw.
There’s no way in hell it would be accepted, but at least it might spice up their week from the usual submissions.
SlackJaw editors, you are the real heroes.
[Update: This is now rejected SlackJaw Submission #8]
