Before Bitcoin, Grandma was a blogger

Grandma, Tell Me About the Good Ole Days On Medium

Is it true? Did money just rain down from the sky?

“Like most things child, we didn’t know how good we had it until it was gone.”

“What was it like? On Medium back then?”

“Well, it was kind of like the gold rush I suppose, but with words. Mr. Williams came over from the Twitter and created a site where anyone, I mean anyone, could be a writer.”

“They could say anything?”

“Anything, child. There were a lot of experts on things at first, but after a few years, they let in people like me who could just put whatever was in my head that day on Mr. Gore’s World Wide Web. Then they started paying me for claps and it was like everything I wrote turned into pure gold.”

“You got a lot of claps Grandma?”

“I put my Bundt cake recipe up there and made $1,000. Claps were glorious. It was like Christmas every day.”

“Did you only write about baking?”

“For a while. Then I realized I had opinions on a lot of things. And if they didn’t clap for me at the Clip n’ Curl, then they did on Medium. I was a Top Writer in every subject. Nuclear physics, underwater basket weaving, poetry — there was nothing I couldn’t write about that people wouldn’t read, or at least skim.”

“What about curation? What was that?”

“Oh, curation! Curation was like a magic wand that the folks at Medium waved over some of the stories. I wrote about my first time in an airplane and got curated. A story I told about the meltdown Agnes Parker had at the PTA meeting when they told her she couldn’t head the fundraiser again got curated too. I got so many claps I couldn’t even count them all. I felt a little guilty about it, but Agnes was a cow and I made so much money I took grandpa and me to the beach for the weekend. I wish it could have been that way forever.”

“What changed Grandma?”

“Well, I guess the clapping was getting out of control so they started paying us for the amount of time someone spent reading our blogs. People like me really had to up their game. There were a lot more people writing about their personal lives and sharing their secrets. People didn’t want my recipes anymore. They wanted my soul.”

“Did you give it to them?”

“Child, I tried, but it made me uncomfortable. And there was so much competition. I did get some good read time for a blog I wrote about the way grandpa liked us to spice up our romantic life, but he didn’t like me sharing that too much. Especially since it didn’t pay for another beach trip.”

“Is that why there are so many nurse dresses in your closet? You never worked in a hospital.”

“What did I tell you about meddling?”

“Sorry, Grandma. Did you keep writing on Medium? After people didn’t read you like they used to?”

“Oh sure, I still liked to blog. And I couldn’t stop chasing that gold, even if it was like a needle in a haystack. When they started the referral program I got everybody from the church signed up but then I realized I couldn’t talk about them online anymore. That was half my material. Gossip and Bitcoin.”

“What’s Bitcoin Grandma?”

“Oh child, that’s going to have to wait for another day. Grandma needs a nap.”

Betsy Denson, 2021

Author note: I do like hearing the ‘old timers’ tell it. If you are curious about the history of Medium, this is a great read: