My Love Letter to Medium and All My Followers

I'd like to thank all my followers for clicking that "follow" button on my profile.

When I told my friend I reached 100 followers, she was so happy for me; she said, “That’s insane; 100 strangers like your writing and know you from your writing.”

Putting it that way, it is insane.

So thank you. And now I am officially part of the gang; I made it into the Medium Partner Program.

What’s even more exciting is that I have already earned some money, albeit it hasn’t been deposited into my bank account yet. It’s still really cool. It feels like a major milestone.

I have made, wait for it...

$o.50

Even though I’m saying this sarcastically, I’m actually very happy. It’s surreal to think that I can make money pursuing my passion and doing it on my own terms. I never thought I’d make any money writing unless I published a book or something.

I stumbled upon Medium randomly. I had been itching to start my own blog for ages, and since starting work, I have free time when I get home and on the weekends. So I went online to check some options out, but a lot of them required me to make my own website and design it myself. I wasn’t keen on that; I wanted a platform where everyone writes and I can read others’ work all in one place.

I kept looking, and Medium kept popping up. So I made an account and read a few articles. I was immediately hooked and quickly started writing.

Even after a day of writing at work, I get so excited to get home and write. I haven’t published every day; most of the time, it’s every other day. I hope I’ll be publishing every day soon, but life has gotten in the way these last few weeks. In any case, here we are two months later.

I’m so glad I took the plunge.

I found an incredibly supportive community, probably the best I’ve seen on any online platform.

I was reading Jason Provencio’s article about how lovely walmart is after midnight and I found it so funny that I had to leave a comment to let him know. He had already received a lot of claps and comments on that article, and he has over 11k followers himself. Being relatively new to Medium, I was a bit shy to leave a comment and didn’t think he’d reply, but he did. Now, I don’t hesitate to leave a comment (a supportive comment, of course).

Something else I like about Medium is that, if I’m not mistaken, you are paid based on the number of views and the amount of time people spend reading your content, rather than the number of claps you receive. And that, in my opinion, is the best part of it all. People may read your work but forget to clap or choose not to clap. But here, if people read it and actually liked it enough to get to the bottom, you’re rewarded. I like that.

Obviously, nothing is perfect. Apparently, Medium’s algorithm isn’t the greatest, and external views aren’t rewarded. For the time being, though, I’m just glad I found a site where I can write, other people can read my work, and I can read theirs.

When I’m bored now, instead of mindlessly scrolling through TikTok and watching silly videos of John Cena dancing in a red suit, I find myself going on Medium to read (don’t get me wrong, though; I do still enjoy some TikTok from time to time).

I found my happy place. Even if I get 10 views or less, I’m happy. And I hope, dear reader, that you will enjoy reading my articles.

It feels like a stepping stone to something bigger.

Thank you to my followers, and thank you for reading! :D