📰 The Writer's Revolt
First Draft Created: 2024-07-15 19:20
Updated: July 17, 2024
Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago
This came from a fun writing exercise where we were given a fictitious news headline as the premise of a short (roughly one paragraph in the first draft) story.
"We want work life balance!" says Cape Town Mommy Blogger.
That was the first headline of my algorithm-curated news feed, as I sat at the breakfast table, filter coffee in one hand and cellphone in the other.
My eyebrows shot right up into my hairline. Sally was in the thumbnail. My next-door neighbour!
I selected the article and began to read.
The day had come.
She'd finally done it!
Tired of the grind at her content mill job, she'd gone rogue, started writing what she'd wanted, on a blog that was supposed to be about parenting. And what she had written was about the exploitative state of the industry - the long hours, low pay, the grind, the disrespect for workers' time...
The facade had dropped. No more pretending that everything was fine. Now, in the picture, she stood holding a megaphone at the head of a crowd of protestors, all galvanised by her writings, as her own employers, owners of the blog, had been powerless to stop her.
Too great had been her social media movement! Too afraid had they been to tell her to stop writing and focus on what they told her to write, let alone to fire someone now so notorious, and invoke the ire of her followers!
Instead, they had gone silent, allowed her to continue, hoping in vain hope that her readers would believe that she was writing under their direction and not a thinly veiled criticism about them.
So she had kept writing, and her voice had given her audience power. Many of them too had started voicing their own protests - first online and now, finally, they were unionizing! The writers, artists and other contracted creators were picketing out in front of the head office of the conglomerate that ruled over so many of their boss's media companies, and whose prominence had influenced the pricing of so many of the others!
I put down my coffee, and selected a slice of toast from my plate. I took a bite, forcing myself to chew slowly and deliberately, trying to slow the flutter of anticipation in my stomach. The excited racing of my thoughts kept me still riding, high of spirits and full steam ahead, on the hype train as I re-read the article.
It was true. It was happening.
There was no sign of things slowing down. No sign of stopping.
People were arriving with supplies, more and more arriving with signs, and joining to add their voices to the mix.
It was time to pack my own bags.
It was time to answer the call.
Now, at last, the workers were taking over.
Now was the time for the toppling of giants, the time of the content mill industry's demise.
Thanks for reading!
You can 💬 comment feedback on this story on my draft blog!