Clap A Lot
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There are many different ways you can clap after a performance. All kinds of performances. Speeches, awards, theater performances, movie premieres, symphonies, and football games. In America, there would be scattered or thundering applause. Everyone claps to the beat of their own drummer.
However, did you know you can make an even larger noise with your hands? If you hold them flat with the natural indentation in the palm of your hands aligned, fingers splayed and pointing up, and clap them that way. Your claps are going to sound twice as loud as if you do it the regular way we do with our hands cupped and nuzzling each other. That’s where the thundering in thundering applause comes from if you don’t have that many people in the room.
In Europe, at least, it was like this thirty years ago, and I can’t see why it would have changed since then there is a rhythmic drumming of hand claps that can almost cause your heart to thump and change its rhythm. This clapping is twice as loud as an American audience can do. Imagine the noise a rainstorm would make if each individual drop of rain came down at the same time as all the drops around it. We’d be flatter than pancakes.
They clapped that way when I lived in Norway in the mid-60s, and they clapped that way in Germany when we lived there in the 1970s and 1980s.
I have a couple of guidelines I adhere to when I clap for articles on Medium. If I like the article, whether mildly interested or profoundly affected, I will clap the dickens out of our available claps. I just go all out. The reason for this is at least an A for effort. We, at least most of us don’t, receive much in the way of monetary support from Medium, but those claps, to me, are worth more than their weight in gold. I think that shows a writer that you really liked their piece. At least, that’s what I hope is going on.
For comments, I will generally keep the applause less enthusiastic, though I try to lay on the mouse for at least half of those 50. So, sue me. Sometimes I clap 50. Hey, I don’t drink anymore or drive much. I just like to clap and show some enthusiasm. I know there are lots of people out there with their own guidelines where one, two, and three claps mean something. Personally, I think that is insulting, and maybe they are not even aware they can clap more than once.
Another thing I like to do is to end the clapping for comments on an odd number. I don’t know why I do that. Somebody wrote a story here at Medium about odd numbers being the more noticeable of all numbers. I do know when we would price gasoline at a company I worked at, the numbers were always odd. Once, we saw a competitive gas station pricing evenly, and my boss muttered, “Rookies” under his breath. Although, when times get really tough, folks will price their gas to the nanosecond of productivity, which encompasses even prices.
You know how $4.99 sounds less than $5.00? It’s just a penny, but it is less.
I know recently the PTB (powers that be) here at Medium counseled against the number of claps that you receive to be more or less nonsensical, but I don’t believe it. It is an acknowledgment from your peers, it is an A for effort, it is a thank you for trying to write. Thank you for arranging the words floating around in your head to be a lesson, an entertainment, a memory; the thing we hadn’t yet thought about. Thank you for trying, once again, to prove that a writer never quits. To show that even though the bread on your table might come from the long hours you stand as a cashier at a store, the words you write, the lifeblood of your heart, comes from your heart.
There are other variables that figure into the amount of money we are paid for our stories. Occasionally, somebody will talk about them. We are also left with some unknowns about the formulas. How much do we earn from people who do not belong to Medium who take the time to read, comment, and clap?
I receive lots of comments, but none of that enthusiasm seems to be translated into money from Medium. Maybe they changed the rules again.
I have to say there are certainly a lot of people at Medium who have accounts, have huge followings, and yet are not paying $5.00 a month like the rest of us are. I read that there was something that happened in the summer to our pay. The system was hacked. Okay, and months later, Medium is still working on the problem. I’m sure some of those employees who were laid off when management changed could have solved the problems. Where are they? Gone.
I have been writing at Medium for two years. I earned $58 for all of 2022. In 2023, it’s a bit higher than that, but still nowhere near able to pay the rent or groceries. I did have hopes in the beginning. But, like all get-rich-quick schemes, other things will benefit your life as a member.
The company you keep. The other writers you see toiling along beside you are your friends in spirit.
In the meantime? Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep pushing yourself. And thank you for the room. I hope I didn’t come off as complaining. I didn’t mean to.
I’ve also come to think of my writing time here at Medium to be my own proving ground for the books inside my head that want to be written. It’s a crap shoot whether they will ever make any money, but at 68 years old, I owe it to myself to try.
And, if I haven’t said it yet, thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, and thank you for your thunderous applause.
