Kinda sweaty under here
Git That Tag Blanket Offa Me
And outa MuddyUm
I live for Medium notifications. A day with no new Medium notifications is like a day without sunshine. An unlit notification bell is like a broken yoke in an over-easy egg.
Claps, responses, mentions — I snarf them up the way my cats inhale that disgusting slop I put in their bowls every morning. I give all my respondents a 5 claps at the very least unless the response is something obnoxious. Most of the time I respond to responses, starting with something like, “Oh thank you for your kind, generous, thoughtful, sweet response! That’s what I love about Medium! Everybody is so” & blah, blah, blah. Medium draws the saccharine right out of me.
But the best? Mentions. I love being mentioned! I’m the guy who, when they take the action stage shots of the choir, somehow never ends up in any of them. When I see “so-and-so mentioned you in such-and-such” it reassures me of my existence.
Sometimes I’m mentioned in a response to one of my own stories, in which case, two dopamine fixes for the price of one. It’s all good. Normal Earthling practices this and I love her for it.
When this article is published she’ll get a notification to the effect that “Quasimodo mentioned you in a Git That Tag Blanket Offa Me.” If she reads this she will find her individuality respected rather than consigned to a blob in one of the piles of sweaty, seething humanity known as tag blankets.
To the best of my knowledge the term was coined by Roz Warren.
Tag blankets pollute the joy of Medium notifications. The other MuddyUm editors, who have stats such as I can only dream about, report that they ignore their mentions. Due to their lofty status they make it into every tag blanket on Medium, so mentions aren’t even worth looking at.
Besides being a cheesy way to attract readers, it’s also rather a lot of work, as I discovered when I constructed two tag blankets myself in order to get people for a pair of Medium Zoom meetings I put together. I present these links just in case there is anyone out there is still wondering WTF a tag blanket might possibly be. Both contain excellent examples.
Maybe six people showed up. Is God just? Did such paltry attendance result from my unpardonable sins?
We’re all individuals here, otherwise we wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing all this stuff. Some of us espouse communitarianism but we all like having our individuality respected, don’t we? We feel betrayed when thrown into a crowded people pile. It is something like those letters or emails containing a “special offer tailor made for Paul Hossfield” when I know thousands of others got the same “personal” message.
I have yet to see a funny tag blanket. If you want readers, write good stories. Funny, tragic, heartfelt, insightful — so many options for good.
Tag blankets are a cheat. Don’t cheat. Quantity is not quality. Cheating accomplishes nothing good for your relationships. Tag blankets add nothing to your stories.