Money and Sex — Is That All You’ve Got?
Your writings tell your readers who you are as a person
What makes you a writer defines what you write. And what you write reveals your mentality. It tells your readers who you are as a person and how you think. Don’t get puzzled. Eventually, you will understand what message I am trying to convey.
Writing is indeed a tough job.
It’s not just unmindfully spreading information or entertaining your readers with what they want. If it is, then all the Twitter and Facebook users are excellent writers. But do we call them writers? I hope not. So, your definition — who writes is a writer — is unreliable.
Recently, I am witnessing a weird trend on this platform. Fellow writers are producing more and more articles on money, sex, orgasm, vagina, blowjobs, etc. And the titles are so enticing that readers can hardly resist the temptation to click on the title.
They contain some trigger words like scientific, science-based, data-driven, or research-based that readers somehow convince themselves to read it anyway. The reason for writing more on these topics is obvious — to get more views, reads, therefore, earn more money.
It’s a fact that an average online reader has an attention span of only 8 seconds, one second shorter than a goldfish, and they always search for something exciting.
And in most cases, online readers searching for some good writing end up seeing those articles with irresistible titles and click anyway to satisfy their infinite appetite for money and sex. No doubt, these two topics excite human beings the most. That’s why most sex and money articles get the desired result.
The problem is — when a writer earns more money on such articles, very often, he/she shares the information on different social media groups. The screenshots of the title, views, and earnings are shown to others as evidence.
When other writers see the topic and titles and its success (financial), very likely they feel encouraged to give it a try whether their articles on similar topics earn more money or not. Thus, more writers feel inspired to write more articles on money, sex, orgasm, vagina, blowjobs, etc.
That’s why you will find people who are not millionaires are providing tips on how to become a millionaire. And those who hardly have a successful relationship with their partner try to teach you about different blowjobs styles or how to satisfy your partner. Yes, now you know the intention behind producing these types of content.
They sacrifice their creativity, sense of sophistication, aesthetics, and ethics to achieve so-called financial success. And if any of those shitty articles gets the expected earnings or go viral, they start producing more.
Undoubtedly, it creates an unhealthy and uneasy environment for both good writers and serious readers.
If you are a good writer with years of writing experience, most likely, you want to see your posts meet their readers. But when they are not getting any views but the shallow-articles on money, sex, orgasm, blowjobs by others are going viral and earning lots of money, you will definitely feel reluctant to share great content as nobody cares what you offer to them.
And it is alarming.
It is disturbing for genuine readers and demotivating for writers who want to contribute to the platform by sharing their thoughtful stories.
On this platform, I have seen experienced writers struggling to get any views on their stories.
As I am an editor of a quality publication, The Masterpiece, many brilliant writers reach out to me and say that their articles are not meeting their readers as they do not write on sex, money and don’t provide the 05 ways to solve everything.
Recently a fellow writer, Walter Bowne, says in an article — In reviewing my 61 published stories, my most lucrative and successful story was something my wife and I laughed about one morning in bed: what if sex had fouls like in football?
Another brilliant writer, David Cenicola, M.Ed., shared his bad experience on this platform in his article This Is Why I Don’t Really Care If Anyone Reads My Story —
“My guess is nobody will read this article either. I’ve been there before — done that. And it is fine. It is their loss. I have over ten memoirs, eight historical fictions, five romance novels, and four crime-dramas that I have written as a ghostwriter that are best-sellers and award-winners. I have always made good money as a writer. But not on Medium.”
David also thinks that on this platform, writers hardly cared about ethics, principles, great literature, or humanity’s concerns. They are more interested in finding success using keywords, tags, headlines, and specific marketing solutions.
It is to mention that in his last post, Zat Rana who left this platform in April 2020, says — It’s really strange how few people my work seems to reach on average these days, even though I have more than 100K followers, and even though, for the most part, my engagement statistics seem to be pretty solid.
So, with your thousand listicles and articles on sex, money, blowjobs, etc., you are polluting the readers’ minds, misleading them, and destroying the beauty of this platform. You are focusing on shallow topics and limiting the possibilities for great conversations on truly important issues.
You are ruining your writer-self and, at the same time, demotivating other brilliant writers.
A good piece of writing is not just spreading information. It is the beauty of the making of it. The diction, language, tone, engagement style, metaphor, humor, subtleness, the underlying thoughts, hidden message — everything matters.
The point I am trying to make is — you shouldn’t destroy your writer-self by producing shitty-content only for money. Writers have no responsibility to satisfy their readers’ infinite appetite for sex and money. Don’t do it yourself and of course, don’t encourage other writers (actively or passively) to produce such indecent content.
Is it only money that motivates you to write? Or, you write to share what you think about life and the world you are living in.
Leave the trending topics or viral keywords aside, and write what can truly enhance your readers' knowledge and bring good for humanity.
Produce content that portrays you as a sophisticated and brilliant writer. Write what lasts long in readers’ minds and initiate good thoughts and conversation.
Why not produce more content about the environment, wildlife, kindness, moral values, culture, innovation, happiness, philosophy, literature, and music?
Explore the diverse world with curiosity and turn your thoughts and experience into an amazing article. Who is stopping you?
Remember, the topics you choose and the things you write give your readers an idea of who you are as a person and what you have to offer.
So, choose carefully.
Happy writing.
Thank you for reading.
If you are in search of some brilliant writers to follow and read their amazing content, take a good note of the following names and explore what they write.
Mike Alexander, David Cenicola, M.Ed., Walter Bowne, Shayla D. Potter, Kayla Vokolek, Karmen Jurela, Beat Schindler, Kerstin Krause, Orianna Nienan, Daniele Ihns, Walter Rhein, Ryan Frawley
If you want to read more of my writings, you may read my popular articles on Medium from the following links —