I’m The Number One Newborn On Forbes’ Thirty Under Thirty Seconds

And my family’s wealth and success had nothing to do with it!

Emily Menez
Slackjaw
Published in
3 min readFeb 22, 2021

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Photo by Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash

Hi, I’m an ambitious little baby and I already have my first staff writing job. That’s right. I came out of the birth canal and immediately signed a deal with HBO Max. How, you ask? I don’t have time for details like “how.” All I know is that I happened to be born into a family that consists of a beloved film actress, a famous director, and a sibling who is a burlap sack of cash with a dollar sign. But that had nothing to do with my success. I earned this the hard way, dammit. I put in my Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 minutes in the womb.

Now, look. Some people may say that my skull hasn’t even hardened yet. So yeah, I haven’t quite learned how to read, write, or walk. But I do know that my ideas matter more than yours. How? Everyone listens to me and laughs at the noises I make. Those noises are my IP, and they’re gold.

I may crawl into the writers’ room wearing my Gucci onesie and a diaper made out of your rejected pilots. But in eight or nine years, I’ll outgrow my selfish phase and learn to share. So if you’re smart, you’ll plant the seed of networking now. Look, I’m a nice baby, so maybe you can be my assistant? The job is simple. I would like you to burp me and put on Frasier so I can admire Kelsey Grammer’s perfect head. Then dictate the ideas that come out of my perfect head. Deal?

You see, unlike you, with your dangling, distracting keys, and your weary eyes, I am a happy fresh little baby. People can smell my success and they admire me for it and then they want to hire me more. Ooohh! I just got my own Peacock show. Yes, please! It can be about my rattle. Which is currently the most interesting object in the world, due to the fact it’s the only item within my reach.

People say to me all the time, “Hello little baby! Why, look how many IMDB credits you already have! How did you achieve success so early you little sweet little goo-goo love?” All I can say is, be yourself. It’s all about being authentic and telling the truth. Also, I have my godfather Christopher Nolan review all my ideas and then write them down for me. He always has a ton of helpful notes, except on the female characters.

At the end of the day… oh, no, I just soiled my diaper. Can you please change me ASAP? Thanks. And don’t forget that I have a Zoom panel after naptime. I’m giving new writers advice on how to “break in.”

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Emily Menez
Slackjaw

I've written for The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, CBS, and others. I hail from Overland Park, Kansas, which is the coolest part of the Midwest.