"Pierce launches us into this notion via a chaotic text conversation between the story's anxious antihero Tom Williamson and another senior partner at the equity firm where he works. "Your autocorrect keeps typing 'dead bodies,'" Tom writes, incredulously. But it isn't a typo. The service's slimy founder Auden White is pitching Tom's boss for investment. Wearing a black t-shirt and charcoal washed jeans, Auden spouts empty platitudes, like "spending time alone with a person who's dead is a profound emotional event.""
"Auden brings to mind several tech entrepreneurs willing to sacrifice society for their megalomaniacal visions. His business plans are boilerplate allegories for subsidized start-ups-who cares if the thing makes profit as long as it occupies headlines? Tom functions as a vehicle for reader outrage. While morally gray enough to work at an equity firm in the first place, he has the foresight to worry that a dating app for corpses could not only bring down the firm but get them all "dragged in front of Congress.""
The premise centers on a swiping app named Liv that allows users to scroll through profiles of corpses and request delivery. The app's founder, Auden White, pitches the service with performative platitudes and disregard for ethical consequences. Tom Williamson, an anxious senior partner at an equity firm, receives the pitch and fears reputational, legal, and congressional fallout. The narrative opens with a chaotic text exchange that reveals the app's unsettling concept. Themes include critique of tech entrepreneurs' megalomania, startup culture that values headlines over profit, and the commodification of death. The tone mixes satire with moral unease.
Read at Portland Mercury
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