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Abstract

be we don’t want to keep it so “real,” you know? Shit is already too real, in my humble opinion. Why not let us hold onto our dreams a little while longer? Because we writers don’t matter, that’s why. Our feelings about how this platform should best serve everyone’s needs, do…not…matter.</p><p id="d353">To convolute matters even further, I just found out that a writer friend GAINED over 500 followers yesterday. Could it be that she got some of mine?</p><p id="0ece">WTF is going on here?</p><p id="9ee3">I love the bit about providing “the best user experience.” Well, my experience for today is, “this sucks.” And, to make matters worse, I’m not sure who to be pissed at. Medium? Or the “<b>unfollowed, spam, and other disingenuous accounts” that I apparently attracted like flies on shit?</b></p><p id="f903" type="7">Here’s something else to consider. The number of our followers is what potential Medium members look at to see if we’re worth following, for fuck’s sake!</p><p id="5588">With that said, if our followers keep on biting the dust, who the hell will want to read us?</p><p id="6950">I need to calm down as I’m veering toward full-tilt asshole territory. Because I just don’t understand why I had to find out about this by emailing the support staff. Could Medium not have given us a heads-up about this latest change?</p><p id="0d07">Maybe some of you did get an alert. I seem to be one of the writers on the “pay no mind list,” so I could be mistaken. Too, I’ll just bet that many of you will think I’m being a whiny baby and that I should shut the hell up and trust that everything the powers that be here, do, is for our benefit.</p><p id="bf58">Well, I’m fresh out of trust. Of the “blind” type, especially.</p><p id="90e6">The final point I’d like to drive home is, that for those of us who aren’t top earners here, we were at least able to take succor from our following. As they dwindle by the day, that, too, will be taken from us.</p><p id="5c68">Speaking of the money-makers, I can’t help but wonder how many followers one of Medium’s top course-peddlers have “lost.”</p><p id="d43b">Ah. I just checked. He’s at well over 174k. He’s good. Whew!</p><p id="5935">NewsBreak is starting to look better and better. You know?</p><p id="8ea2"><i>© Sherry McGuinn, 2021. All Rights Reserved.</i></p><p id="5e5f"><i>Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s soon-to-be-ex-manager is currently NOT pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.</i></p><figure id="4168"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*bmiUSFpTIby-buv2"><figcaption></figcaption></figure><p id="1948">Thanks for reading, guys. If you enjoyed this, I’d love for you to check out the following, as well as

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“Oh, 800 Followers, Where Art Thou?”

On the chopping block, that’s where

Obsessive checking of my Medium stats isn’t my style. Or hasn’t been, anyway. Recently, the few times that I’ve taken a peek over the past several weeks, I’ve been grateful to see that the number of my followers has been rising steadily.

“Great,” I thought. “People are enjoying my ramblings.”

So. Imagine the jolt to my fragile ego when I checked my profile page today to see that I’d lost over 800 of what I thought were “faithful” readers.

In one day.

Fuck, I was so wrong. According to Medium, at least, who, in their attempt to keep things “real” excised those readers from my profile because they were a bunch of shit-eating assholes, apparently. Bots, or spammers or Venusians, I don’t even know.

I went from inching close to 3.9k followers to my current number of 3,069k. That’s one hell of a cut.

Thanks, Medium!

Thanks for taking three years of hard work and turning that to shit. Because now, I feel like shit.

Thinking that this was a system glitch, I fired off an email to “our friends” in support and received the following missive in return. By the way, check out the grammatical errors. These folks need an editor!

Hi Sherrymcguinn,

Thanks for writing in. You can also find an update on this event in our company blog: https://blog.medium.com/keeping-medium-authentic-947feaf59415

As part of our ongoing work to provide the best possible user experience, we’ve begun removing accounts previously unfollowed, deleted or suspended for spam from your follower and following counts across Medium.

From your FOLLOWERS list, this is ONLY accounts that have PREVIOUSLY been suspended or deleted, or have unfollowed you in the past. These accounts were not active followers.
From your FOLLOWING list, this is accounts that have previously been suspended or deleted, or you have unfollowed in the past. (Your following count includes both the authors and publications you follow)

There was more folderol, but you get the picture. I suppose much of this is on me as I don’t follow the “Medium blog” religiously. An email alert would have been nice, no? That at least would have prepared me, and whoever else got kicked in the ass, the mental and emotional stress of seeing our numbers shift so dramatically.

Maybe we don’t want to keep it so “real,” you know? Shit is already too real, in my humble opinion. Why not let us hold onto our dreams a little while longer? Because we writers don’t matter, that’s why. Our feelings about how this platform should best serve everyone’s needs, do…not…matter.

To convolute matters even further, I just found out that a writer friend GAINED over 500 followers yesterday. Could it be that she got some of mine?

WTF is going on here?

I love the bit about providing “the best user experience.” Well, my experience for today is, “this sucks.” And, to make matters worse, I’m not sure who to be pissed at. Medium? Or the “unfollowed, spam, and other disingenuous accounts” that I apparently attracted like flies on shit?

Here’s something else to consider. The number of our followers is what potential Medium members look at to see if we’re worth following, for fuck’s sake!

With that said, if our followers keep on biting the dust, who the hell will want to read us?

I need to calm down as I’m veering toward full-tilt asshole territory. Because I just don’t understand why I had to find out about this by emailing the support staff. Could Medium not have given us a heads-up about this latest change?

Maybe some of you did get an alert. I seem to be one of the writers on the “pay no mind list,” so I could be mistaken. Too, I’ll just bet that many of you will think I’m being a whiny baby and that I should shut the hell up and trust that everything the powers that be here, do, is for our benefit.

Well, I’m fresh out of trust. Of the “blind” type, especially.

The final point I’d like to drive home is, that for those of us who aren’t top earners here, we were at least able to take succor from our following. As they dwindle by the day, that, too, will be taken from us.

Speaking of the money-makers, I can’t help but wonder how many followers one of Medium’s top course-peddlers have “lost.”

Ah. I just checked. He’s at well over 174k. He’s good. Whew!

NewsBreak is starting to look better and better. You know?

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s soon-to-be-ex-manager is currently NOT pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

Thanks for reading, guys. If you enjoyed this, I’d love for you to check out the following, as well as my newsletter, Sherry Raw.