BOOST ME BEBE!
Being Boosted — Here’s Why You’ll Loathe the Experience.
Be careful what you wish for
Getting boosted! It’s what we all crave.
Or do we?
In case you’ve had your Medium-head submerged in the mud, here are the boost-ilicious morsels for your snacking pleasure.
Back so soon?
Now, the reasons a boost befalling you would be Hell on Earth.
1️⃣ A lifetime of disappointment
You’re reasonably happy now, as a medium Medium writer, contentedly wallowing in obscure mediocrity.
A boost will catapult one of your stories into the 5,000-to-100,000 view category. Exactly. Once. Agh!
This dopamine mega-surge will NEVER EVER happen again.
After your manic high fades, you’ll plummet back to an average boring existence, miserable. You know, that place where 99.9999% of writers reside.
And all your remaining days will be filled with regret, unrequited longing, and self flagellation, or something like it.
Who wants that?
As is famously opined, “Wallow in shit you know. Don’t try to wallow in shit you can only imagine.” — Lao Tzu, never said
Or, “Imagine there’s no boosting. It’s easy if you try. No fame below us. Be happy, high and dry.” — John Lennon, never warbled
2️⃣ You’ll have obligations up the proverbial ying yang
Presently, if one of your stories gets a few dozen comments, you delightedly respond to each and every one of them. Don’t you? Oh, you don’t?! You ungrateful biatch and/or bastard!
True, only one or two of the comments are anything more than formulaic tripe in the guise of meaningful communication about your work, cleverly dispensed in the hope you’ll reciprocate with a read, some claps, and a “heartfelt” comment of your own.
But still, comments are some kind of feedback on your meager literary leavings. Be grateful.
Imagine the cow flop you’ll step into if you get boosted and hordes of slavering fans drop comments on you.
You’ll be stuck.
You’ll want to respond to each and every one in the vain hope that your boost bonanza will continue ad infinitum, but you’ll be overwhelmed, sure to disappoint legions of potential lifelong groupies. They’ll turn on you like hardcore MAGATs turned on their former lizard king, The Orange Julius Caesar, and will drown you with their bile.
That’ll be a fine pickle, won’t it?
The only ray of hope in that boost-inspired debacle … only one or two of the comments will be anything more than formulaic tripe in the guise of meaningful communication about your work, cleverly given in the hope you’ll reciprocate with a read, some claps and a heartfelt comment of your own.
You can ignore those too, if you like. After all, you’ll be transiently famous and can do whatever TF you please.
3️⃣ Your read ratio will still suck ass
Imagine your disappointed puzzlement when, of 100,000 viewers, only 27,000 give a shit enough to read your shit.
WTF?! you’ll think.
73,000 people, a moderate-sized city’s worth, whose interests matched your story’s tags, and therefore got your boosted beauty jammed into their in-box, didn’t give a good goddamn, or have 2.57 minutes to grind through your positively-promoted prize-winning piece, and “finish it off.”
That’s some bullshit!
Be delighted with your present crappy read ratio AND low viewer numbers. 100 views and 27 reads? Sure that’s the same crappy read ratio as the unrealistic scenario above. But, that’s not a crushing defeat. In fact, that’s a better performance than your last 39 stories. Celebrate.
BTW — I’m secretly hoping for a boost, and a whole new set of life’s little kicks in the ‘nads. But, you knew that already. Didn’t you?
PS: Your sudden fame spurt will have your family and friends asking new inane questions.
Look! Here’s one now.
Q: Do you blog? A: No, I don’t fucking blog. I write and publish on Medium.com, an online writing platform. And, I’m notable AF there. I’ve been boosted.
Don’t go!
In the mood for more words of wisdom, profound perspectives, and horrific bullshit?
Well then, read these diamonds in the rough.