Principle Stash

Comic

A hand-drawn parody of a social media thread, seven posts connected by a vertical line. Each has a wobbly ink avatar: an owl for @duolingo, a girl with pigtails for @Wendys, a house for @StateFarm. The owl and the girl trade insults about breakfast menus, Spanish homework and a faked death; the house interrupts twice, first to ask whether a policy was active at the time of death and finally to report an owl at the residence. Small reply, repost and heart counts sit under every post and climb as the thread goes on, ending at 1.4M on the last one.

Engagement Farming

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I made all of this up and it still did better than my last launch.

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Appears in Where Does Software Engineering Go From Here? (Part 1)

Transcript

Invented posts, real accounts. Nobody said any of this.

@duolingo — wendy’s. your breakfast menu has a 3% completion rate. i’d send a reminder but you have me muted.

@Wendys — you are a cartoon bird that emotionally blackmails children over spanish homework. sit down.

@duolingo — children fear me. adults fear me. your CFO fears me. i have everyone’s address. it’s in the app.

@Wendys — you faked your own death for engagement and came back with a brand deal. we just sell burgers.

@StateFarm — was a policy active at the time of death?

@duolingo — no

@StateFarm — our records indicate an owl at the residence.

The counts climb the whole way down: 22K likes on the first post, 1.4M on the last.