It Doesn’t Have To Be Good

The algorithm craves meat—raw, bloody engagement.

Quality? A relic, quaint as typewriters or shame.

Three acts, they taught me in school: beginning, middle, end.

Now it’s hooks and dopamine, metrics climbing like hungry vines.

Thumbnail: shocked face, red arrow, numbers. Always numbers.

Title: YOU WON’T BELIEVE.

(But you will. You always do.)

Strip meaning down to its bones.

Polish those bones till they gleam with artificial light.

Content—such a sterile word for what we feed this ravenous machine.

Sawdust packed in shiny boxes.

But it sells, it sells, it sells.

Fingers hover over keys worth pennies per word.

The screen glows, a confessional booth.

Forgive me, Literature, for I have sinned.

I’ve written listicles.

I’ve optimized for search engines.

I’ve sacrificed beauty for bounce rates.

Hemingway drank to write.

I write to drink.

The difference matters.

Success tastes like copper pennies.

But pennies stack into dollars,

and dollars don’t care about Oxford commas

or metaphorical resonance. They care about:

Engagement.

Optimization.

Monetization.

(Holy trinity of the digital age.)

Write fast.

Edit faster.

Publish fastest.

Quality is a luxury

for those who can afford to starve.

The screen glows.

The metrics climb.

The words flow like water

through a coin-operated tap.

It doesn’t have to be good.

It just has to be.

(And be monetized.)