Is Medium a Malignant Narcissist?

Are member-owned and operated publications and their editors suffering through an abusive relationship?

I chose as my feature image the narcissus flower. Discussing the flower and its name, the New York Botanical Garden says on its website:

The word “narcissus” is derived from the Greek word narke, meaning numbness (also the root of the word narcotic); the flower may have been named thus because of the intoxicating fragrance of some species.

In mythology, Narcissus transformed into the flower now named for him because:

Unable to leave the allure of his image, he eventually realized that his love could not be reciprocated and he melted away from the fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white flower — Source

The personality disorder is named after this mythological figure “who fell in love with his own reflection.” Source.

Yet, the flower also has positive symbolism:

The most common symbolic meanings attributed to the narcissus flower are rebirth, renewal, and the coming of spring. For that reason alone, it’s the perfect flower for March birthdays. It can also mean good luck, happiness, prosperity, and wealth — Source

Discussion

I woke up this morning from my first solid sleep in days feeling refreshed and with an active mind ready to write. One of the first thoughts to pop into my head involved these words of mine that I had written in 2012 in response to an assignment from a therapist to describe a healthy romantic relationship:

each partner should maintain their sense of self; no one should lose who they are to the relationship; it should be a partnership wherein each person maintains their autonomy; kind of like a treaty between, for example, the United States and Canada — contributions and rules are agreed to but each country maintains its sovereignty.

This described an interdependent relationship. It is the opposite of codependent.

I had intended to write a short form story around this quote and showcase these stories from Esther George:

Then I checked ILLUMINATION’s Slack-space editors’ channel and saw that Dr Mehmet Yildiz had nudged me to edit his latest thoughts on the incongruity of Medium’s 15-story-per-day rule, which he first creatively complained about here:

Then several split screens emerged from my INTP subconscious and consciously converged with the synchronizing theme of this story. Time to expose the vampire,

and hope for rebirth and renewal to spring forth.

Examining Medium’s bevavior through a personality disorder lens

Esther writes in the first story of hers that I linked above:

I’m on high alert when some imposing personality type enters my space and demands my energy without reciprocity [emphasis added]…They never accept responsibility for any issue or fault…What separates time vampires from the rest of the crowd is that they feel no shame or remorse for taking advantage of others and their time for granted. [emphasis added]…It’s a whole different ball game with the needy and thirsty time vampires who suck up my time and who are indirectly hinting that my time is less valuable than theirs. [emphasis added]

While not using the label herself, Esther clearly described a narcissist and as editor, I added that tag to her story. Here are some common traits of someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

In other words a narcissist succeeds by taking advantage of the talents of others to achieve their goals without giving credit where credit is due.

Unfortunately, I have personal expertise in spotting the wolf-in-sheeps-clothing form of narcissist — the covert narcissist.

In my response to Ev Williams recent announcement regarding his pivot away from publications, I focused on the fact that Medium needs the free labor pool of member-owned and operated publications to maintain its leveraging of our efforts to shield it from liability for libel and for copyright infringement.

I did not then point out that the decision reeked of passive aggressive retribution against the staff of the Medium-owned-and-operated publications that came within one vote of unionizing.

A few of us have had the intellect and intuition to know that Medium did not create the algorithm and paywall changes for any reason besides greed:

I commented in Kiran Yasmin’s story:

The threshold question any writer who comes here in the hopes of making or supplementing their living from the MPP should be asking is what % of the subscription fees is the formula designed to payout? I figure Medium takes in between $5M and $7M a month in fees. For sake of argument, if the 6% average $500 a month, that’s $900,000. If the other 28,500 writers average $10 a month, that’s a shade over $1.2M a month paid out. I’m sure there are a lot of techsperts in here who can estimate Medium’s fixed-costs for engineers and server farm space and then we might have some idea where the money is going.

[Medium’s own likely undereported figures amount to $3M a month in income.]

I also commented:

I do need money, but I do not expect to make money here as I see through the curtain — I came here to grow as a writer, which I have, and as a place to share my ideas as a stepping stone to a career change that may be primarily as a writer or may be primarily as thinker, and in the process I have also gained more spirituality in the last 30 days than I would have doing decades of 12-step program work, so, while on a macro level I am bothered by what I see through the curtain (30 editor limits and other obvious-to-the-aware [competition] dampening policies), I am personally thrilled with my Medium experience.

I remain thrilled with my Medium experience. Yet, karma demands that I call bullshit when I see it.

None of this should surprise anyone. The perversion of free-market-capitalism entrenched in this country protects the 1%’s and their narcissistic need to get rich by exploiting the wage-stagnant middle class. As I have written and tweeted:

The 1%’s have perverted capitalism, and worse they quote Adam Smith out of context. Smith’s Wealth of Nations posited that free-markets would lead to wealth fairly distributed among the citizens based on their contribution. We do not have free markets. We have markets twisted by laws written by lobbyists for large corporations and too-wealthy-individuals. Capitalism has been perverted into a Darwinian game of survival at the top of the food chain at the expense of others. As spiritual beings, humans are not supposed to act like animals. So, no, Alex, your father is not a communist. I am a pure capitalist. Our rigged system of capitalism is actually pathologically narcissistic as one succeeds not based upon their intelligence but upon their capacity to manipulate and take advantage of other people.

This great story deserves more love.

Conclusion

I had planned on going deeper into the analogies with some sections on gaslighting (great explainer here), lack of transparency and proper workplace communication, but I think I’ve put enough food for thought on everyone’s table for one day, and I’ve been writing all day and want to go for a long walk. Perhaps now that Medium is deemphasizing its pubs, the 30-editor and 15-story-per-editor rules will disappear without announcement.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it. Jesus was a great man with a soul from the highest level of Heaven.

Then you would be in the realms with the great archetypes, messengers and guides and archangels. You then would have an awesome burden and responsibility to heal those souls that remain on earth.

One thing I know for sure is that after this article I am never getting out of curation jail, and I do not give a fuck, two shits or three rats’ asses, because I fight for those afraid to speak

AND

In Rama I create,

Marcus