Snowden strikes at the Grammar Games!
Medium’s Content Lab exposed by whistleblower
[A secret conference room near the Colosseum’s executive lounge, Day 35]
(with special thanks to Sherry Caris, Elliot Nichols and Edward Snowden who leaked this material, along with the exact location of the sound studio where they filmed the moon landing and the bombings in Bosnia. And apologies to Morgan Rock Loehr.)
CONFERENCE MEMBERS: Medium’s top psychologists, professional development coaches, UX designers and developers [Note to Ev: everyone invited tests out as an INFP or INTP. Is this going to create any problems?]
GOAL: Develop new systems to increase the quantity and quality of content from writers currently imprisoned in Medium’s Content Lab. Counteract current high attrition rates and replace current combatants, burn outs and drops outs with future groups of prisoners who will be delighted at the prospect of publishing their content for no compensation.
LEADERSHIP: Emperor Ev
AGENDA:
- Meeting to begin at 11:30 a.m.
- Brief inspirational speech by Emperor
- formal luncheon
- Q&A with Emperor
- Brainstorming for the remainder of the afternoon
- Prepare and deliver report to Emperor’s chambers, regardless of the hour tonight
PROCEEDINGS:
- Meeting called to order at 11:30 a.m.
- Emperor has not arrived, so the floor is open to anyone who wishes to address the conference, transcript to follow:
[Silence]
The banquet room is drenched in silence as we wait for the servers to arrive with first course.
Everyone was torn between thinking of their existential nightmare and quoting a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Specifically instructed by each of our significant others not to talk about politics, economics, history, religion, comic books, or how much modern music sucks, our only conversational opener is “How ‘bout them Lakers?” but the Lakers are so horrible this opener will have to be shelved until perhaps 2019.
Besides, everyone was too shy to introduce themselves. So we just wait in a very comfortable silence, observing the people around us and thinking “how the hell did I get conned into joining this group of cynics, surbersives and assorted deviants?”
- 12:00 p.m.: Luncheon begins
Mercifully, the servers bring the first course, a delightful lobster bisque, but there are no table settings.
In unison, we comment “waiter, taste my soup!” laugh as the servers fall for the oldest gag in the book, and simultaneously feel respect and outrage that the others have copied our theft of a one-hundred-year-old joke.
As the servers leave the room to find spoons, so do the guests, figuring it is a perfect excuse to escape and find the comfort of the books and games contained in the tablets we have been ordered to leave in the car.
If the timing is right, we will all return just before the end of the entree to scarf down lunch and be present to get our just desserts.
- 1:00 p.m.: Q & A
- Emperor Ev enters the conference room, toweling himself off and making a strange squish-squish sound with each step he takes. Transcript to follow:
[Signaling toward henchmen]
“You, you and you, turn off those damn lights! Now string up a single bulb above the podium here.” (brandishes Colt 45) “Get the lead out! Does this look like a beard-growing competition?”
[Room sinks into darkness, with only a single light bulb swaying]
“Okay, now that’s more like it.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make lunch, but had a small matter to deal with on the yacht. As you know, we are losing writers due to Grammar Games casualties, burn outs, and those namby pamby losers who can’t take a couple of negative comments without getting their panties tied up in knots.
Well, remember any publicity is good publicity. We want controversy. Controversy leads to more clicks. More clicks lead to more green hearts. And more green hearts lead to more green. You only get that with some negativity and conflict.”
[Leans forward, and rests the gun on the podium, pointing it toward the audience]
“People, you’ve had plenty of time to come up with ideas on how we can increase the quality and quantity of our final deliverables, and I want to hear them. Now.”
[Silence. Ev takes the pistol and shoots three times into the ceiling. Plaster and dust fall through the light cast by the moving lamp]
“I’m waiting people. Who has some ideas? I want a show of hands.”
[Every person in the conference room raises their hand, but a fair number raise both. The Emperor points to one trembling, bespectacled middle aged man with meatloaf stains on his vest]
“Okay, you, what have you got?”
[Professor I.P. Freely speaking]
“Your highness, the most direct path to increased quality would be for us to focus more resources on retaining our best writers. For example, (checks data on his tablet) here’s an increasingly popular female writer, a fluffy Latina humorist by the name of Ellie… she fits our demographic to a T, but was unceremoniously crushed by a giant hamburger. And here… we have a brilliant fiction writer named Elliot who has been imprisioned in the dungeon for the last month. He keeps complaining about not seeing his wife and kid, and his output has dropped significantly. About the only thing we’re getting out of him right now is repeated mumbling, something about the freedom of mediocrity.”
[Emperor points gun at professor and cocks the trigger]
“Sit your ass back down!
[Looks at a young woman in glasses, jeans and a Metallica t-shirt who seems to be having a bad hair day]
“What about you, sister? What the hell do you do, anyway?”
[Chief Technology Officer Amanda Hugginkiss]
“Emperor, I’m the head of the back end developers” (assorted giggles in crowd)
“You? You don’t look like an engineer. But whatever, spill the goods, and they better be good.” (Points pistol at Amanda) “After all, I am an equal opportunity employer.”
[Amanda]
“Our research shows that people are unhappy when they constantly change their search criteria, block writers, and unfollow others, but get the same stream of listicles and other data driven content. Perhaps if…”
[Emperor shoots her phone. Siri moans in pain]
“Thanks for nothing, Amanda. You realize the entire point of Medium is to get those suckers hooked on whatever the pablum du jour is. That’s our wheelhouse. We can produce that shit as fast as our data inputters can move their squat little fingers. And that brings in the clicks and hearts and moolah. Who’s next?
[Russian psychologist Yuri Nater, a towering bald man with a beard, stands up stiffly and shakes his legs to regain blood circulation]
“Perhaps ve must consider pyscho-social ramifications of writer ingress and egress from perspective of reader closure and corporate sustainability…”
[Emperor takes aim with his pistol]
“Okay, Doc, this time in English, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I’m not going to stand here like some open mouthed ape begging for a Yuri Nater to quench my thirst. Get on with it.”
[The Russian begins sweating profusely, at least I hope it’s sweat]
“In simple terms, veird disappearance of beloved narrative woices highly disturbing and vorking to crush morale of comrade writers—zis is vorse human rights wiolation than gulag. For example, giant blue pencil erasing Gutbloom seems to influencing dropout behavior of warious luminaries like Jennifer Smith and cranky Crow guy.”
[Emperor wags pistol to make a point, accidentally discharges a round that lands between the good doctor’s feet]
“Hold on a minute, didn’t we just bring that guy back in a giant piñata?”
“Da, comrade highness, but then you throwing him in dungeon and turning him into Medium-sized piñata that look like garden gnome.”
“Yeah, and I’m not sorry. That joker was trying to take my position, so I had to make an example of him.”
[Dr. Nater reviews his notebook and then places it in front of his now soaked pants]
“Sire, sorry to interrupting, but forgot most disturbing news of all. The first of FALLEN was funniest man in empire, comrade Morgan Rock Loehr. He vas dissolving in pool of acid tears. Interest in Grammar Games wery bad since zis incident.”
[The Emperor starts screaming, then demands the lights be turned on so he can shoot all of them out, except the dangling light bulb above his head.]
“WHO COULD BE SO STUPID TO KILL OFF OUR BEST HUMORIST?”
[A heavily accented voice from under the table]
“It vas this man, sire.”
“I don’t care what it takes, bring him to me. I’ll throw him in the dungeon. No, that’s too good for a depraved weasel like that. He’s not good enough to be one of our enslaved writers. Tie him up and suspend him from the ceiling like a dusty old discount store piñata so I can use him for target practice. No, that’s still too good for him.”
[Turns to a henchman with a laptop and issues the order]
“DELETE his account.”
[Collective gasp from crowd, henchmen and piñata builders. Dr. Nater pokes his head above the table]
“Comrade majesty, he’s typing zis as ve speak. If ve deleting account, zis could causing anamoly in time space continuum — and maybe end life on planet.”
[The Emperor motions to the henchman to stop, closes his eyes and takes a deep cleansing breath. The room falls silent. No one moves. Even the dangling light bulb stops swinging.]
[Exhales] “Okay, I didn’t get to be Emperor just because I’m a rich guy. I can code. Where are Morgan’s remains at this point?”
“Comrade Loehr dissolving into wery fabric of the Medium, vith simultaneous sightings of him eating fondue vith Taylor Swift in Sviss Alps and inwestigating fender bender in Vitchita, Kansas between two Toyota Camrys.”
“Doctor, do you have a hat?”
[Nater nods]
“Then put it on. This meeting is over.”
[As soon as the hat is placed on the doctor’s head, the Emperor shoots it off and Nater faints, landing face first into a half eaten bowl of borsht. A smile spreads across the Emperor’s face.]
“I’m off to reconstitute our resident wise guy’s molecules. And the yacht calls. I’ve noted your feedback and come to the decision that you will all help me more by putting your ideas down on paper in the form of more content. Guards, take everyone down to the Media Content Lab.”
(Another collective gasp and shouts of protest, but the henchmen round everyone up and remove them from the conference hall. The Emperor fingers his cell phone and plays “Get Back” by Ludacris and starts dancing like Tom Cruise at the end of Tropic Thunder)
- 1:30 p.m. meeting closes
- Brainstorming session to continue in the Medium Content Lab. Length of session has been increased from a few hours to life imprisonment
- End of minutes
(Special shout outs: Sherry’s Meyer’s Briggs writing challenge which inspired the lunch scene. Elliot’s hilarious writing about Medium’s Content Lab, became a founation of the story arc, appeared in Chapters 5.5 and 11 of The Grammar Games, and served as inspiration for the boardroom scene. And, of course, The Simpsons, because I have a serious problem finding names for characters.)
(UPDATE: thanks to DayLeeFix for reminding me what an idiot I am to have killed off MRL in Chapter 1 of the Grammar Games. Please forgive me, Morgan. On bended knee, I offer you these delicious sacrificial donuts:
What!? I’ve been writing since the break of afternoon and didn’t have breakfast.)
