Behold, the journarator

DELARA

What do you feel like watching tonight? Movie? Espionage? Non-fic?

QUENTIN

Is it too ambitious to ask for a journaration — say, something grown-up and political with lots of context, absolutely zero American exceptionalism, no trope-y patronizing, and a point of view that actually includes people who aren’t just white hetero men?

DELARA

Goodness. One of the reasons I love you is that you know exactly what you want, you weirdo. Okay. We have two options: One, we could look at what other folks have journarated, and pick from there. I really like the serialized stuff TurmOil is building out of Pakistan around the politics of oil, if you’re into, well, oil. Or…

QUENTIN

Or — sorry, but I already know what the second option is: We could just journarate our own thing. Please let’s do that? I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, hear me out: Rana Ayyub’s writerliness meets…oh, remember For Sama, that documentary by Waad Al-Kateab we saw? That kind of story structure? Imagine her telling us about the Thai nationals in Israel affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example.

DELARA

Oh yes, please. That’s been on my mind a lot because of our friend Nok’s family there. She’s so worried. Could we talk about treatment options? What if we have it all look like my friend Ozge Sebzeci’a photography? Can we do that? That quality of light — and that sublime, angry stillness of her work.

QUENTIN

Wow. I like the way our non-fiction dream team is coming together. Remember that Malcolm Gladwell + Atul Gawande phase I went through ten years ago when I used to wish everything I didn’t understand were to be given to me as a 15,000-word New Yorker article written by the lovechild of Gladwell and Gawande? What a time to be alive, etc. But isn’t it all getting a bit pricey?

DELARA

And then you got tired of Gladwell and your New Yorker addiction moved to the Mekong Review. But what do you mean our journaration is pricey?

QUENTIN

You know they won that massive case a few years ago, right?

DELARA

Of course, who doesn’t — such a landmark verdict. I still remember the whole #getpAId movement. So they passed the bill?

QUENTIN

Yes, thank goodness! So everyone gets paid, and the more people you add…

DELARA

Wait, I found it. It says: “Any resulting journaration — regardless of the length, medium, or format (series or feature, fact or fiction, podcast, article, or image) that the journarator specifies — is priced by calculating the proportional fee of each human involved in the creation of any source material that affects the result. Each creator is listed on the blockchain, and each one is paid every time any user journarates any piece of content that uses even a fragment of their work. Creators include any work by any human: researcher, reporter, lighting assistant, photographer, coder, artist, or director. All journarations are fact-checked at source…”

QUENTIN

So wait — what would we pay for our little bit of personalized journalism?

DELARA

I think basic pricing is $25, and then we pay extras for all the options and talent you just added on, Miss Fancypants. If we watched an existing journaration, it’s $10. Either way, whatever we journarate is shared across the Journaverse.

DELARA

Oh. $25, huh? It’s not nothing. Plus extras.

QUENTIN

It’s a movie ticket. Come on, let’s do this.

DELARA

Yay. I mean, I like the oil series, but maybe not tonight.

QUENTIN

I agree. Will you set up the prompt? Six episodes? I’ll get dinner started and walk the dog.

MINA

Ammi, I need you to approve my Abomeration on your credit card. I’ve just made a 17-hour movie that’s just Taylor Swift as Barbie in Frozen.

QUENTIN

Delara, I hate to do this to you, but my plans have changed. You’re on your own tonight. Mina — bubblegum-flavored popcorn for everybody!