MEDIUM | SAY NO TO FAKE ENGAGEMENT

No Need to Stay for 30 Seconds if You Don’t Like My Article

Seriously, you don’t have to

Once upon a time in the realm of writing, there was a website called Medium where writers had unwavering support for one another. It is within this rich tapestry of … erm... tapestry of tapestry? I can see you rolling your eyes while shaking your head now. You really can’t continue reading this piece of crap. So now, you have four choices.

1. Leave the page with no further action.

2. Clap and run.

3. Stay on the page for 30 seconds, clap and leave a comment based on the title and/or the last sentence in the article. Or just repeat what others said in their comments to make it appear like you actually read it.

4. Read the entire article because you actually enjoy anything that Tze Lin writes. Even when it’s a piece of crap.

So, which option would you choose? Ideally, I’d love for you to choose Option 4, but I understand that it’s not realistic to expect that from you each and every time. So, in this case, the only other option that you should choose is Option 1.

Option 2 is the scummy thing to do. I’m sure everyone reading this dislikes those who clap-and-run.

Now, what about Option 3? Those who stay on the page for the sake of spending 30 seconds on an article. If you are my friend, and you choose to stay for 30 seconds even though you are not interested to read after the first line or so, then let me assure you that you don’t have to do that. Also, you don’t have to clap or leave a comment if you really don’t want to, or feel that it’s not justified. I won’t be mad if you don’t read every single one of my articles. Chances are, I might not read every single one of yours too. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we stop being friends just because we missed an article or two.

I also don’t keep track of who’s reading my articles, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll stop reading yours just because you didn’t read mine. As I mentioned to a few writers before this, if we are friends, then we are friends. Just like in real life, you don’t keep track of who bought lunch how many times.

When I publish a piece on Medium, I want people to read it. Otherwise, I would have just written on my phone or in my journals instead of publishing it online. By reading it, I mean reading the entire article, and not just reading the title, or the last paragraph.

Because if that’s the case, what’s the point of writing an article then? Might as well just write one sentence. So what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want someone (human, bot, alien, dog, cat, whatever) to simply pretend to read it. While it’s lovely that you stay for 30 seconds, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to force yourself to engage. Simply. Leave. The. Page.

Or if you are one of those kind souls (I know you exist and I love you), you feel like you might hurt my read ratio, then you can stay for 30 seconds, but don’t engage just for the sake of engaging. The message I get if you engaged without reading is that you make it all about you. You want your name to appear on my notifications. You want me to notice you. You want me to read your article in return. All these don’t sit well with me.

I can’t stand people who pretend to be my friend on Medium by engaging with my articles in the hope of me reciprocating. Recently, I blocked about thirty writers, some of whom I’d been following for months and a few of them are even long-time members/editors, because it was very obvious that they did not actually read my articles. They simply left comments based on the title, the last paragraph, the tags, or a random paragraph in the middle. The most cunning ones even wrote their comments based on what other readers had commented. The most interesting part is that almost all of them stuck around for more than 30 seconds, so technically, I earned from their “read” and engagement.

But that’s not good enough for me. I hate dishonesty more than I love a shiny penny. I’m not being elitist. Medium earnings are important to me. I even wrote about it. I’ll link the article at the end of this one. I just value friendship and honesty more than money. After all, I wrote on Medium regularly for 22 months without earning a single cent (besides Ko-Fi tips).

When someone stays on your page for 30 seconds, most likely they are not doing it out of the kindness of their heart. I’m not being cynical. I know that altruism isn’t dead. But I am pretty good at analysing stuff, if I do say so myself. So hear me out. How can you argue that these people are helping me by staying for only 30 seconds? They don’t even know me, so why should they? And the reason they don’t know me is because they have never actually read any of my stories. So why do they do it, then? In my opinion, it is because they are afraid of being caught clap-and-run, especially as more writers check their stats frequently.

So they open your page, stay on it for at least 30 seconds as they put the kettle on, make a cup of tea, and goodness knows what else, and then return to clap and comment on your article.

I know I could have just accepted the money earned from their “reads” without reciprocating, but honestly, I don’t want to engage with fake comments. It hurts my heart to witness this level of dishonesty on a daily basis. It makes me question if I’m good enough (as a writer and as a person), or if people are merely pretending to like me by liking my articles. For me, it’s not worth the price. I recognise that this is a drastic move, but if you can handle it, then good for you. I can’t.

Lately, there have been many articles circulating on Medium about the infiltration of bots, AI, ChatGPT, etc. For me, that’s beside the point. Whether you are a bot or a human, a scammer is a scammer. Also, these bots are controlled by humans, no? Or are you telling me that these are sentient beings on the loose on Medium? So the point is, whether they do this manually or via bots, it doesn’t matter much to me. It’s all just semantics. This is not a courtroom, for crying out loud! A scammer is a scammer. The only difference between someone who does it manually and someone who uses bots is that the latter is conducting fraud on a big scale, whereas the former is a small-time crook. I don’t want anything to do with either of them.

If you think about it, it is also really silly to engage with this type of behaviour. Let me give you an analogy. Suppose I offer you some delicious homemade cookies (hypothetically, of course, as I can’t bake, and obviously my writing can’t be describe as delicious). So yes, back to the cookies. I offer them to you, and you take one, but instead of popping it into your mouth, you simply stare at it for 30 seconds. Or you put it aside and take cookies from other people, each one you put aside, and when 30 seconds is up, you toss each one away (referring to people who think that it is okay to “read” from multiple tabs simultaneously). How silly is that? If you take a cookie, then eat the damn cookie. Don’t just look at it or keep it for 30 seconds before tossing it away.

So what I’m trying to say is, be authentic in your engagement. As for myself, most of the time, I do engage with an article that I read, simply because I genuinely enjoy reading articles from my Medium friends. It’s not just about the content for me. As I get to know each of you, I want to read your thoughts, and so each piece is indeed interesting to me, even if it’s not a genre I’m familiar with. As you can probably tell from my writing, I dabble in many different genres, so my interests are quite varied.

But that’s me. You do you. Maybe you just don’t have the time to read uninteresting articles or maybe you just don’t want to. That’s fine. I believe in free will. You can do whatever you want. Some might argue that this means that they can pretend to read because that’s what they want to do. And yes, that’s true, but don’t expect me to go along with your scheming. I will block you, even if you’re a Friend of Medium, which about half of those I have blocked are. This shows how seriously I view this matter.

One gripe about Medium is that, if I block someone, their comments disappear from my articles, but my comments still stay on theirs. I know this is true because someone else replied to my comment on an article of someone I’ve blocked. I don’t know if the blocked person can still see my comments. Either way, it’s awkward as hell. Medium staff, if you are reading this, appreciate if the team could fix it.

This article is inspired by a comment I made on Adrian CDTPPW’s article.

Here is the link to my article which I mentioned earlier.

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