JPgritty 70s "journalists investigate a serial killer" thriller but it's set in the 2020s and they never catch the killer because they all get laid off for not meeting Site Revenue Goals
Brendan Sinclair@jplebreton I spent months on a story about Twitch's workplace culture and I worried the entire time that there would be layoffs and I'd be stuck telling a bunch of people "Thanks for pouring your heart out and trusting me with your story of trauma; I don't know if I can legally do anything with it now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
Erin@jplebreton it's ok though because the serial killer was also laid off. fuckin everybody's doin it
@ChateauErin the serial killer is actually VP of Global Strategy and ordered the layoffs
@jplebreton this is efficient synergy, both by having different business divisions help each other, and utilizing the natural propensity of VPs to be serial killers
Glyph@ChateauErin @jplebreton second act twist: the VP/killer was actually trying to drive *up* revenue by killing because cutting his own headcount would reduce his power in office politics. The journos set up patron-supported indie blogs and desperately try to continue the investigation but the trail is now completely cold since the VP has no motivation to drive clicks post-layoff. He almost gets away with it but he can’t resist a joke about being a “hatchet man” on a podcast.
That’s the title.
@ChateauErin @jplebreton two things in case they weren’t obvious; seems like there’s no other way it could go to me, but maybe others aren’t familiar with genre tropes or context
1. murder weapon is a mystery early on, the podcast revelation allows them to perform some forensic tests to determine its provenance once they realize it’s a hatchet
2. It’s the joe rogan experience
Ricardo Harvin@jplebreton too soon
Karl Habermas@jplebreton Killer ran the private equity firm that bought and stripped the paper.
RowinSpeez@jplebreton isn’t this basically the premise of every superhero story? Like true vigilante and detective work?
Ves