Medium Seems More and More Like TikTok Lately

“Mr. Originality, come my way, come and see. Let me be your fantasy!” — I love the way a 2000s song from my country puts it

The Chinese factory mindset seems to be the driving force behind content creation all over the internet.

Basically, what many new creators do is pick out a few original or popular creators and copy their style or content.

Using similar titles and presenting pretty much the same information without citing sources or even making many changes, the copycats have it easy and become popular over night.

If you go look for “10 Facts about Something” videos on YouTube, you will see that most of these videos will tell you exactly the same things — recycled information at its very best.

Well, this trend has been something normal even on Medium since its inception. I assume. ’Cause I haven’t been around that long, but I’ve been long enough to see that many Medium articles get copied and rewritten by other “writers.”

But I did not know that was a thing for publications too. Lately, a lot of publications have popped up “like mushrooms after the rain,” as we say in my native language.

Many of them are quite on the offensive too, adding people as their writers at random without any form of recruitment whatsoever.

But above all, a new type of niche or community-based publication has become increasingly popular. Their focus is on “writing readers” or “writers who read,” and so on. You catch my drift.

Now, I could have sworn I heard that somewhere before. Maybe around May 2023. Weirdly specific, I know. But I’m not really sure.

Oh, wait. I’m so silly. That’s when the Read or Die franchise was born on Medium. How could I ever forget something with such a name? 😁

I remember how things used to be and still are, to a certain extent. For most publications, fast publishing meant publishing a draft between 3 and 5 hours after it was submitted.

And that was a happy case. You would have considered yourself lucky if your draft was published in 24 hours.

That Adrian guy was crazy enough to create Read or Die and even publish as fast as he does. The guy is a no-lifer, setting such high standards. Sheesh! 🙄

He got people so used to the standard of fast publishing that he set, and now some folks think anything short of publishing right away means making them wait. 😅

Jokes aside, I’m not really that bothered. Those who know me know that I have a pretty chill and laid-back personality.

I’m just looking at these things, and it amuses me. That’s all. Copycats or not, I will always be doing my own thing and pursuing my own style.

It’s okay to let yourself be inspired by other people. There’s nothing new under the sun, so it’s hard to claim one idea as our own.

Sometimes multiple people get the same idea. I lost count of how many times I wrote and scheduled an article for later, only for someone else to send a draft on the same topic to my publication.

But there’s nothing wrong with that. As long as they express their opinions and insights and support them with their own arguments, that’s okay. In fact, that’s what matters the most.

My humble advice for everyone is to do things their own way instead of copying others. That’s what sets you apart from others. Never forget that.