“You know how we joke about our ‘brand promise’?” I say to Jess in our weekly meeting.
“You mean our guaranteed minimum of dick jokes? Naturally! Why?”
“I’m thinking of finally writing a real one.”
“Oh, like a sentence or two in the sidebar?”
I make a face. My coblogger regards me with the abrupt suspicion of a dog owner whose faithful friend is chewing on an item of unknown provenance. “How long is it?”
“Kinda long…” I concede, a bad dog chewing faster.
She sighs. “I look forward to reading it.” This is what she says when she’s resigned to receiving an eleventy-thousand-word shitstorm that defies editing for clarity and brevity, delivered the morning we’re supposed to publish. And like X, I’m gon’ to give it to her.
Lately my brain has been leaking big, scary thoughts about the nature of the work we do here. Conversations about AI, plagiarism, social media, and the value of creative labor swirl through my head. I try keeping these thoughts where they belong: in the shower. But sometimes they escape and bully their way to my word processor.
Today, I want to spell out the real Bitches Get Riches promise. To make specific promises, and to explain why they’re so important. Because I want you to know me—and because I want you to know what you can (and cannot) expect from “content creators” in this time so fraught with artifice and greed.
It’s a little different from our usual. Indulge me, and I’ll strive to reward you for your patience.
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