THE SECRETS OF WRITING ON MEDIUM, PART 2
Is Your Social Media Feed Garbage?
Prospect for enlightenment instead of gratification.
I’m not a huge fan of the whole “I made $11,369 this month from writing, and you can, too” con.
Did I say con? I’m sorry, I misspoke.
People who hold out the prospect of getting rich quick, while making bank off the hopeful and desperate masses are not con artists.
They’re just entrepreneurs… like this guy.
Samuel Brannan became the richest Californian during the 1849 Gold Rush… without ever looking for gold.
See if his story doesn’t sound just a little familiar:
“In 1847, he opened a store at Sutter’s Fort (present day Sacramento)… “…he “owned the only store between San Francisco and the gold fields — a fact he capitalized on by buying up all the picks, shovels and pans he could find, and then running up and down the streets of San Francisco, shouting ‘Gold! Gold on the American River!’ He paid 20 cents each for the pans, then sold them for $15 apiece. In nine weeks, he made $36,000.”
Aren’t content marketers selling the dream of striking gold just like Brennan did?
Disclaimer: A few of the self help articles I’ve read do contain some value, so I am not condemning every writer in this group. Nor do I feel that affirmations and inspirational thoughts have no value. My main beef is with how the system gets abused and people don’t present the whole story.
There are always going to be a small group of people who figure out that it’s good business to sell shovels to the thousands of people who hope to get rich quick.
And the astronomical odds that one those prospectors will actually strike gold are completely ignored.
Instead of people getting fed up with those impossible odds, the shovel salesmen point to these rare instances as proof that their shovel actually was responsible for someone striking it rich.
And somehow we still swallow that bullshit.[1]
The ability to get paid through various means on social media has transformed society in ways similar to those wild days in 1849.
I saw an email about someone making $22,000 in one month, and decided to write a tongue-in-cheek “exposé” revealing how to crack the code and join those other one percenters.
The response (almost entirely due to my shameless plugs of a far more popular friend) was positive, but it didn’t change four truths:
- There are a ton of great writers, of which only a tiny percentage get any recognition.
- None of those get rich quick articles actually tell the real story of how to make it big.[2]
- What makes writing important has nothing to do with being popular or making money.
- We can’t find our favorite writers because it goes against the goal of monetizing social media.
While I don’t have much more to say about the first three points, I thought a lot about the last one and tried a thought experiment.
Instead of hoping to get more fans because I wrote something enlightening, I decided to see what I could learn from the people already here.
I looked at every person who clapped for my article, went into their profile and tried to find an article that seemed interesting (obviously, my perceptions and criteria will be different from yours).
Guess what?
It gave me a new feed that yielded consistently great writing.
By changing my focus from gratification to curiosity, I struck creative gold, and here are the results.
(A quick note on methodology: I found something wonderful from every writer, except for a couple people who either hadn’t written anything or were just starting out. The only people I did not include below were the popular writers I already know.)
Roz Warren — I found a kindred spirit, the creative sister I never had… and boy am I jealous of her. With a one minute poem, she summed up everything I’ve been trying to say about Medium for the last three years, only funnier.
Snippets —an absolutely brilliant writer who combines humor, subject matter; historical perspective; using more than one narrative style; and a wisdom attained by very few people raised in the age of social media.
His 19th century version of sending a dick pic was masterful.
Jack Preston King — Haunting, longing, and loss filled this bowling alley of love. I never cease to be amazed at how great prose/poetry can cause us to feel things we don’t want feel, and face unknowable future destinies over which we have no control.
Stuart James — In the span of 15 seconds, I was transported to a fictional world of faded Hollywood glamor, hilarious linguistic play between American and English slang, and an abrasive, yet touching relationship between an abrasive boss, her gay assistant and the miracle skin tightener that kept her skin flawless, even in death. The ability to be transported into another consciousness is the mark of truly great writing. Try it sometime, instead of hacking away at one of the latest tech bro autobiographies, such as “I rule, and you all suck, so stop f*cking whining.”
Mo Solo — combining Star Wars and humor with anything is always going to make me smile. Throw in some wicked satire of the self-help Empire dominating our present galaxy and vacuous students walking haphazardly through university hallways, and you’ve got a huge winner.
Susan Brearley — in the span of a single line in a haiku, comes a line of poetry that should stand proud with any published poet. It only takes a second to read but all of the layers of meaning unfold and expand into every part of my being as a dog lover.
Terry Bain — Made me laugh out loud in less than 30 seconds. We are brothers in arms, surviving the ordeal of owning dogs that are stupid enough to chase and attack skunks.[3] His reference to zombies was priceless:
I don’t believe in zombies either but have included them here to illustrate that skunks are way scarier than zombies. I don’t give a shit about zombies, but I have weekly nightmares about washing the goddamn skunk spray off my goddamn dog.
Herapocrypha — An incredibly deep snippet of love that feels more like poetry in its ability to branch off into so many other themes, including racism, privilege, self-esteem, unrequited love, and the wisdom that comes from loss:
Being attracted to him gave me the sense that I could, if I were to ever love and be loved by someone, keep myself intact, keep my heart from running afoul of my head.
Erik Smith — I love good photography and artistic graffiti. Here’s a fantastic four part series, including a time lapse video of wonderfully talented artists using spray paint. You’ll find the links to the first three parts in the article.
Lise Colas — I’m a huge history fan, so this historical fiction about two stewardesses who survived the Titanic transported me to a distant and cold place.
Mark Starlin —In 50 words, he paints a horrifying situation that speaks to our mortality and helplessness.
Mike Range — Another one of my favorite humorists. Even if he doesn’t garner the thousands of claps generated by the data-driven dry heaves that dominate this database.
P.G. Barnett — My dad and I shared a love for detective stories over the last 30 years of his life. I haven’t read one since his passing, but this western-tinged murder mystery started to scratch that old itch. I always enjoy seeing how a writer brings in various skills or life experiences to give their protagonists a unique flavor. I’ll have to read more.
forceOfHabit — Here’s a quick respite from all this reading in the form of a great haiku about the oasis. (After reading this and other haikus, I decided to begin my own 100 haiku challenge.)
Bonnie Barton — Her personal journey of love and self awareness are both good story telling and sad commentary on the way society has changed over the last 25 years. I don’t envy anyone who has to deal with dating and the way social media has destroyed the frameworks for establishing and building relationships.
My alternate feed didn’t include one story that reached the top 1% standard, but it was full of laughter, sadness and unscripted, unexpected creativity.
Stop whining about your feed, and try doing some digging instead.
Social media geniuses will continue to make money through selling shovels to unsuspecting prospectors in the form of paywall stories, online courses and book sales.
For the rest of us, if we stopped worrying about views, building a following, and all the other bullshit that we think we want, (but will probably never get), we might gain far more value from this writing community.
There’s gold in them thar hills.
P.S.: Sorry, no plug for you this time, Gutbloom. I hope you’ll get over the slight and publicize this article, too:)
P.P.S: Allow me to apologize for not pluggimg Gutbloom. His writing prowess is so formidable, even when he writes a quick plug for me it turns out to be funnier and more popular than the article I slaved over for days.
I must bow to the master soul blogger, the pro with prose, that dali lama of mayo and salama, the one, the only Tribune of Medium, and encourage you to read “THIS” not “this.”
[UPDATE/SHAMELESS PLUG: Good news readers! Cracking Medium’s algorithm has helped take my writing to a whole nother level (grammatically correct according to the Webster’s dictionary)
For some inexplicable reason, one of my writing rants was selected by Medium curators in the writing category at 1:03 AM PDT. I have no idea why this happened, let alone who would be up at 4:03 AM in New York curating articles. My only guess is talking about walking my dogs must have scored points with those Corgis hard at work. Here’s a screen shot to prove the story was curated, just in case they realize their error and remove the story.]
Thanks for all your comments. They are usually the best part of Medium.
If you’re a real glutton for punishment, check out the rest of the series:
Part 1: I’ve solved Medium’s algorithms — get ready to become rich.
Part 3: Know How to Write Powerful Headlines Immediately?
Part 4: 4 Ways of the Wordsmith: How to Be Happy and Successful Now
Part 5: How I Made $14.73 on One Article and Other Lessons Learned in August.
Part 6: Is the Medium Algorithm Now Controlled by the Russians? Maybe that Would be a Relief.
Here’s to better writing.
Footnotes:
[1] There is a finite amount of money generated by paid subscribers. And yet our feed is clogged by get-rich-quick stories. What’s wrong with this picture?
What would happen if everyone who wrote something really good was recognized by the algorithm and compensated accordingly? Wouldn’t everyone get back the same percentage of their $5 monthly membership?
Remember, the boys who built this ship are always going to get their cut from the top.
If each writer somehow managed to build a following of thousands, and wrote articles receiving 2,000 claps, then everyone would be in the top 1%, and no one could possibly make $22,000 in a month. But it wouldn’t stay like that very long.
In the end, the social media masters would have even more massive followings and the number of claps to reach the top 1% would climb ever higher.
[2] If you’ve really good at social media and develop a following of 4,000 loyal people, you can just write absolute crap and 5% of those people are still going to give you 10 claps. That’s all it takes to produce a consistent stream of top 1% articles.
[3] Our dog Storm was especially determined, no matter how many times she got sprayed each time. One incident was so terrible, my wife and I were tempted to tie her behind our Volvo wagon and drive home, but I’m sure we would have been stopped by the police, or attacked by PETA zombies.
Writers’ tools and a bonus question.
What is the best way to format footnotes? Here’s a cool article that contains all the characters you wish you could access on this site, including superscript numbers:
