Has anyone ever got a medium referral? Like, ever?

Lessons Learnt From My First Viral Article

And other assorted ramblings

Disclaimer: Please do not read this article if you find stats or making money on Medium offensive. Or deep, existential ponderings on what it is to pursue art and financial security simultaneously.

I think everyone born after the year 1985 has dreamed of going viral. Fifteen minutes of fame is drilled into our minds the first time we see another child on television. I remember watching Home Alone and marvelling at how Macaulay Culkin tricked those dumb crooks into being flamethrowered.

This kid was a star. I’m purposefully choosing to ignore the subsequent descent into drug addiction and burnout, because if I ever get to the stage I can pound 6 grand on heroin a month and choose to take a decade off work, I reckon I’ve made it.

Joining Medium kind of felt like auditioning for Home Alone 7: Alone With My Homies. T-Stubbs III played the role of Stephen Spielberg, or whoever directs the franchise these days. He invited me to sit down and chat.

He said, make me cry. I rubbed an onion in his eye.

He said, make me laugh. I rubbed the onion in my own eye.

He said, make me think. I said, why did you laugh at my agony?

If I could achieve all those things every time I wrote, I’d be a star too. I’d be a writer, man.

Last week, I woke up one morning and rolled over to cuddle my beautiful smartphone. I pressed my thumb against her side and stroked her face gently. She responded in turn, lighting up in a shade of white brighter than an atom bomb on Mt Everest. My brainwaves kicked into gear as I ogled my stats page on Medium.

My latest story had 200 views overnight. That might sound like small fish to you big fries, but to me it was basically walking on water. I checked again during my lunch break in the park — 500 views. This was it. I was finally going viral.

I was halfway through dialling my mum when I delved deeper into the stats and saw the member reading time was pitifully low for so many views. What had happened? Instantly my heart sank. Those barnacles of the internet had latched onto my story and were determined to sink my ship.

Fucking external viewers.

In despair and frustration I threw my cheese and tomato sandwich skywards.

I would never be a star. I would never date Mila Kunis. I would never be able to turn away drugs because I had enough already.

The sandwich hit the grass next to me with a plop. As I stared down at the soggy remains of three-day-old bread, tomatoes that genetic modifiers couldn't save and cheese that tasted like a plastic fart, a seagull swooped down and pinched a beakful. It took off smiling its evil seagull smile, flapping ahead of the chasing pack.

External viewers weren’t a problem. They were an opportunity. I only needed a tiny percentage of them to click on my referral link and I would be dining out on passive income for the rest of my life. Say goodbye soggy cheese and tomato sandwiches, say hello caviar toasties and Dom Perignon milkshakes.

Then a thunderbolt hit the seagull and dropped it from the sky, feathers and tomato juice spattering my forehead.

I had forgotten to include my referral link at the end of the story.

Writing, for me, has and always will be a personal matter. I write to express the emotions I’m not great at speaking out loud, and the jokes I was too slow to think of at the time. If I am feeling tense or stressed, I don’t meditate. I don't yoga. I write.

When my mind and fingers are connected, and ideas jump across the screen, it gives me a high most street-level drugs can't match. Like any addiction, I need my daily fix. But a busy life doesn’t allow much of a fix. Why do you think most addicts end up unemployed and alone?

If I could make some sort of income out of my writing, perhaps in the future I could reduce how much I work my day job, and allow more time for ̶g̶e̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ writing. Making money via Medium is probably not the smartest or easiest way to achieve this, but it’s a start. And sometimes, it means I need to sell myself.

One of the worst things about being a writer is you also have to be your own marketer. Unless you are plucked from obscurity by a major publishing label just out of your writing nappies, chances are you will need to market yourself and your writing.

I’m hopeless at selling myself. If someone was to ask me why they should read my writing, I’d probably say, Oh, well, only if you’ve got nothing better to do. Half my friends don’t even know I write. And the other one doesn't particularly care.

A family member of mine is the complete opposite. He could sell sand to camels, air to birds and a moral compass to Vladimir Putin. If he worked in sales he would have raked it in. Instead, he pursued his passion of film and has battled hard his whole career to scratch out a foothold in the industry.

But selling himself over and over again has made him believe in himself even when others laughed at his dreams. The confidence he has in his own abilities has allowed him to clamber to his way to success in the latter stages of his career. The downside is an ego that at times is irritatingly impenetrable, but the Devil didn’t grant Robert Johnson mastery of the blues for nothin’.

I knew I needed to channel my inner Robert Johnson. I raced home from work, opened up Medium’s story editor and inserted my medium referral link and email subscription link for good measure. Then I sat back and waited for the good times to roll.

7000 views later, I am yet to get a single referral sign up or email subscriber. I have earned $1.89 on the story and my resignation letter has been burned along with my hopes and dreams that 2022 would bring a virus that didn’t suck.

Instead of the despondency I feared would hit hard, I find myself in a reflective space. I have floated up above the keyboard and can see myself below like those in a near death experience sometimes report.

But instead of a hospital bed, or a roadside, I am peering down on a hunched figure hammering much too hard on the keys below, as if sheer violence can extract the beauty they refuse to yield.

Lessons learned from floating beneath a mould-spotted ceiling

If you are not amongst the thousands of people (you got this, ego) who have read the article, you can do so here, and then critically analyse whether my lessons are valid.

1. External viewers are unlikely to deliver your fortune. It’s not how Medium works. That’s like children expecting their classmates grandparents to waltz in on grandparents day and offer to buy their finger-painting of a dog doing a doodoo for $14,000. Just because they think you are cute does not mean they love you.
2. Know your audience. My referral link message may not be appealing to consumers of golf and politics. Your membership fee directly supports Patrick Eades to buy drugs and other creative tools like stationary. Readers who enjoy both golf and politics are unlikely to support drug taking, stationary purchases or writers in general.
3. Writers should not be shamed for trying to make a buck, unless that’s all they are trying to do. Even then, there’s enough shame in this world already. Why not choose love?

Questions I still have after sinking back down to my body

1. How far exactly am I willing to sell myself? I know I need to sell myself more, but how far am I comfortable going? I still want to write what I want. There won’t be 20 articles a month from me on how to gain 10,000 followers or join the elusive 6% club on Medium. Firstly, I am way off either of those things, and more importantly, I have no desire to write those articles. My soul is not for sale. Ok, that’s a lie. But not for less than 1 million dollars. Or a member referral.
2. Is it ok to: a) make jokes about a global atrocity in which millions of innocent people are suffering? And, b) to profit off those jokes? To me, satire is a powerful tool to inspire thought and action, and writers of satire are no less deserving of making an income than those who write science-fiction, romance, or children’s literature. But others may not feel the same.
3. After everything I have read, and written, why do I still have a lingering urge to go and play golf?

Perhaps you read this story hoping the secret to success would leap out of the screen like a tapeworm looking for a new host and slither itself up your arsehole. Sorry, you can pull your pants back up now.

Perhaps you read this story because you have read my stuff before and weren’t completely bored, disgusted or offended. To you, I am sincerely grateful.

Perhaps you read this story because you are sitting there right now, onion lodged firm against your red raw eye. You are ready to paint your portrait and toss it amongst the crowd; ready to float above and smile, as you peer down and glimpse laughter beneath the tears.

Go on then.

This article was partially inspired by a brilliant piece on this topic by Paul Gardner:

When not pondering real deep shit, Patrick Eades writes humour and fiction, and funny little footers that are really just thinly veiled phishing attempts for you to subscribe to his email thingo and join Medium so he gets a cut of your dole money.