I Have A Problem With Punitive Clap Withholders

Maybe You Do Too

I just read a thought-provoking essay by Medium writer Lulu deCarron about why she’s banned the use of laptops from the coffeehouse she owns and the ensuing customer (and media) response.

The response was largely positive, as was the reader response to her post.

Except for one reader, who left a long, impassioned and entirely negative comment, which began by calling her a naive fool and concluded, five paragraphs later, that she had no right to call herself an entrepreneur.

Whew. Strong stuff.

But that’s not what bothered me.

That’s his honest response to her piece and he’s entitled to that opinion.

He’s also entitled to respond with an articulate, if snarky and sneering, put-down. Although a little less trashing of the writer herself and more focus on her content would have been welcome.

Still, nobody promised us that writing on Medium would be all sunshine and buttercups.

If you write about making an unconventional business decision, you run the risk that not every reader will think it was a wise decision.

And that one reader might even call you a fool.

What really bugged me about the Negative Commenters response? He didn’t clap for the post that inspired it.

He read it. He was moved by it. So moved, in fact, that he posted a lengthy comment.

But did he give a clap?

Nope.

I have a problem with Punitive Clap Withholders.

Claps are a currency of Medium, an important measure of Reader Engagement.

Readers who punish content they don’t agree with by refusing to clap have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a clap means.

A clap doesn’t necessarily mean “I agree with you.”

It means “I read and responded to this post.”

And God knows this particular commenter did respond. With a vengeance.

The way I look at it, to refuse to clap for a piece that you were so obviously moved by is just petty maliciousness.

Plenty of readers have disagreed with my own posts. But even those who took issue with the content of my work — and dumped all over it in the Comments section — have had the courtesy to give it a clap or two on their way to trashing it.

Which is how it should be.

We’ve all got our Clap Systems. Some of us clap way too much. Others sit on our hands and refuse to clap for anything.

One of the things I always do, clap-wise?

When I spot a Punitive Clap Withholder, I make sure to clap like crazy for whatever it is they’ve refused to applaud for.

Which means? DeCarron’s essay got 50 claps from me.

And if you think that response — or this post — is ridiculous?

By all means, come after me in the Comments section.

But if you write a brilliantly snarky comment that’s calculated to take the wind right out of my sails and bring me to tears with its combination of insight and devastating wit — but refuse to clap for the post that inspired it?

I’m not going to take it seriously and neither should anyone else.

Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)