All Medium.com Top Writer Tags, Number of Hits, and Amount of Writers in 2023

Updated for 2023! Full list of top writer tags on Medium.com

For those of you that don’t know, the “Top Writer” award on Medium.com is a mark of professionalism for most authors on the platform.

While not everyone cares about the accolade, it certainly helps increase eyeballs on your work. I’ve personally received at least 20+ Top Writer tags since starting on Medium.

And while I do enjoy them, I don’t personally pursue them anymore. That being said, at any given time I usually have about 4–5 under my belt, focused mainly around my multiple niches.

If you’re looking to achieve one of these bad boys on your own Medium profile, here’s the full list of known Top Writer tags as well as a brief introduction.

Let’s get started!

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What is a Top Writer tag on Medium.com?

Here are a few things to know about Top Writer status on Medium.com:

1. There are 74 known Top Writer tags (based on community feedback. Medium doesn’t formally list what they are so all of the results are from the community itself.
2. You can gain and lose Top Writer tags (I’ve gained and lost at least 20 myself in the last year).
3. Medium chooses Top Writers based on a secret algorithm.
4. If your work is curated/distributed by Medium, it seems to help your chances of getting a Top Writer tag (but this isn’t verified).
5. Publishing several stories (if not at least 5) within a short time period (ex. 1 month) using the same Top Writer tag is the best way to earn the status.
6. You need to actually use the specific Top Writer tag(s) in your articles when publishing them.
7. When you get a Top Writer tag, you’ll appear more prominently in searches and in somewhat exclusive sections of the Medium search bar.
8. There are only 50 ‘slots’ for Top Writers within each category. So as of the time of this writing, there can be a maximum of 3,650 different Top Writers.
9. BUT most prominent authors on Medium have several if not more than 10 Top Writer tags at any given time — so the actual amount of Top Writers is likely only in the hundreds at most.
10. Medium doesn’t update the number of stories written with each tag very often (you can see the number when you go to type in a tag while publishing a story).
11. To find out what Top Writer tags an author has, you need to go to their ‘About’ page on their profile, like this.

Here’s what I mean by appearing in “exclusive sections of the Medium search bar,” using ‘Politics’ as an example:

If you click the ‘See More’ button at the bottom, a list of all 50 Top Writers for ‘Politics’ pops up. (I’m somewhere around #20 on there right now.)

If you slowly drop down to the 51st spot, you’ll lose the tag and have to write more articles with the same Top Writer tag to regain it.

Basically, it’s a semi-competition to be more prolific and popular — in terms of views — than other writers in each category.

What are the Top Writer tags on Medium.com?

The below post is a list of all current Medium tags known to be eligible for Top Writer status. I also included several subset lists to further focus on areas that are easier to break into.

If anyone is curious to see what some of the famous authors on Medium.com have in terms of Top Writer statuses, have a fun look through this article.

I’ll keep this article straight and to the point, so if you’re looking for other information on Medium Top Writer achievements, please just scroll to the bottom. Enjoy!

73 Top Writer tags and the number of stories using the tag:

1. 2016 Election — 52,000 stories written
2. Advice — 59,000
3. Architecture — 33,000
4. Art — 154,000
5. Artificial Intelligence —145,000
6. Bitcoin — 268,000
7. BlackLivesMatter — 54,000
8. Books — 122,000
9. Business — 310,000
10. Climate Change — 79,000
11. Cooking — 24,000
12. Creativity — 129,000
13. Culture — 139,000
14. Design — 269,000
15. Diversity — 33,000
16. Economics — 67,000
17. Education — 335,000
18. Energy — 35,000
19. Entrepreneurship — 337,000
20. Fashion — 94,000
21. Feminism — 73,000
22. Fiction — 146,000
23. Finance — 150,000
24. Food — 169,000
25. Future — 47,000
26. Gaming — 96,000
27. Government — 55,000
28. Health — 381,000
29. History — 98,000
30. Humor — 146,000
31. Ideas — 32,000
32. Innovation — 106,000
33. Inspiration — 143,000
34. Internet of Things — 25,000
35. Investing — 101,000
36. Journalism — 59,000
37. Leadership — 168,000
38. LGBTQ — 56,000
39. Life — 530,000
40. Life Lessons — 459,000
41. Love — 357,000
42. Mental Health — 208,000
43. Movies — 147,000
44. Music — 230,000
45. NBA — 35,000
46. Parenting — 98,000
47. Photography — 129,000
48. Poetry — 466,000
49. Politics — 400,000
50. Privacy — 42,000
51. Productivity — 185,000
52. Psychology — 122,000
53. Racism — 61,000
54. Reading — 48,000
55. Relationships — 221,000
56. Satire — 46,000
57. Science — 100,000
58. Self-Driving Cars — 18,700
59. Self Improvement — 340,000
60. Short Story — 147,000
61. Social Media — 244,000
62. Space — 25,000
63. Sports — 212,000
64. Startup — 491,000
65. Sustainability — 46,000
66. Technology — 351,000
67. Television — 72,000
68. This Happened To Me — 26,000
69. Transportation — 23,000
70. Travel — 337,000
71. Venture Capital — 58,000
72. Virtual Reality — 40,000
73. Women in Tech — 30,000
74. Writing — 331,000

If anyone knows of other new Top Writer tags, please comment below! Thanks!

You may also be interested in:

33 tags that still don’t have 50 writers:

In theory, meaning less competition & easier to break into:

10 tags with the lowest ratio of tag hits to top writers:

In theory, each these tags require fewer articles to get into the top 50 list:

How to use the above information?

For those looking to find a niche to get into, or are just trying to attain that oh-so-coveted Top Writer status, the above information is the perfect place to start.

1. Look through the list and highlight what categories appeal to you
2. Mark their competition levels (do they have under 50 Top Writers? How many tag hits are there?)
3. Of the tags you chose, figure out which ones you can write about every day for a month
4. Go write about it every day for a month!

For some more advice on the subject of niches, feel free to check out this one:

Good luck and happy Mediuming!

J.J. Pryor

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