Should you livestream your layoff?

Livestreaming “Diablo IV” we understand, but getting canned from your job?

A recent viral storm occurred when Brittany Pietsch, a former account exec at Cloudflare, recorded her firing, during which no one involved could explain how she failed to meet performance expectations.

While many viewers commended Pietsch for standing up for herself, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince defended the firing as one of ~40 across its sales team, despite admitting it was done poorly.

It’s not just Pietsch

According to Business Insider, it’s becoming more common for workers to hit record when being let go, especially when layoffs occur over Zoom or other online platforms.

• Mickella Simone Miller shared the hours spent waiting for her layoff from a tech company, which included watching people go into meetings, then eerily disappear from Teams.
• Another woman did hers in the style of a very depressing “get ready with me” video.

But why?

Well, we post everything now. This TikToker rates luxury bathrooms on how nice they are to poop in.

Insider posits that layoff videos destigmatize the process, and show young employees what to expect and what to do next.

There’s also been a heavy push since the pandemic for companies to take accountability for how they speak to and treat employees, with a glut of CEOs going viral for callous or out-of-touch remarks.

One might argue that future employers could be reluctant to hire someone who’d post a layoff video — but as Pietsch, whose LinkedIn is full of support, wrote:

“Any company that wouldn’t want to hire me because I shared a video of how a company fired me or because I asked questions as to why I was being let go is not a company I would ever want to work for anyway.”