Oh No! They Tell Me I Need 100 Followers!!!
Once again, I find myself wondering about life as Ashton Kutcher
I signed up to Medium because my friend said this is where all the cool kids hang out. Her exact words were: “this is where you can write shite and get paid for it.”
I mean, who wouldn’t smash their keyboard in a wild rush to sign up?
Got here in the nick of time too because I hear they’ve changed the rules and now new writers can’t join the Medium Partnership Program unless they’ve got 100 followers.
So I signed up and his holiness, Ev Williams, sent an email welcoming me with a slap.
He said OVER 20,000 stories are published every DAY and MOST of these are stories “you and I have yet to discover.” (Capital letters and bolding my own.) Meaning there’s a greater chance of someone finding a pig in a poke than there is of someone coming across one of my stories.
Then I hear they’ve stopped paying their publications and more and more “independent” publications are shutting their doors too. PS I Love you, The Post-Graduate Survival Guide and most recently, the Ascent. All gone. I used to enjoy reading stories from there and dreamed of posting in them one day.
So what does this mean? Have I entered the Medium world too late? Have I arrived at the cusp of a new beginning?
Should I cough up a few shillings and pay in?
More importantly, am I still competing with over 20,000 stories a day? Do I stand a chance of being read? That 20,000 doesn’t include all that shiii…. er… valuable content…. people are writing on their Wordpress blogs, LinkedIn and Substack too.
So much to read…. we’ll all be needing more eyes soon.
So the purpose of this story is twofold:
- I have to act like the lonely kid in the playground and plead for friends. This is my best begging voice: Please follow me, sit next to me and I’ll sit next to you too.
- I want to introduce myself.
I’ve done as much as I can for the first point. For the second point here goes:
Who is old Piree Lua?
I’m a silver-haired siren (haha) who loves pets, children and cauldrons. By old, I mean older than I used to be.
I’m from the tech and media world. When I’m not starry-eyed, I’m usually laughing at the world, offering up solutions nobody listens to until they eventually see the rightness of my ways.
The “I told you so” headshake was invented by yours truly.
Home is London. I wouldn’t call it a leafy street but there’s a tree outside the window and birds sit on it when nobody’s watching, I’ve seen their droppings.
Favourite foods are cakes, grapes and chocolate biscuits.
Favourite pet is the furry one that doesn’t answer back.
Why you shouldn’t follow me
I’m of ethnic persuasion and have not drunk the woke-aid. Bandwagons and permanent outrage are not my style. Sarcasm is well my thing.
I also like to call out selfish woke types who can dish out shit and run away from the consequences. For example, Tessa Schlesinger did a bit of comment abuse on this article so I wrote about it:
Someone Left A Comment On My Article And Blocked My Replies | by Piree Lua | Sep, 2021 | Medium
And I write about the weird things I come across that you might not think are weird at all:
Why you should follow me
I’m a sarky old moo, quite righteous and blunt. But on the positive side, I’ll follow you back. I don’t usually advocate follow-for-follow but this new 100 follower malarky means needs-must.
Update: I’m in the big leagues now and have amassed 200+ followers. Thank you! I’ve paid-up to join Medium too!
- It’s getting harder to follow back because Medium randomises people in the list and no-one’s got the time to scroll pages to see which new person has joined
- I’m continuing to support all the lovelies who read and engage with the things I write — leave a comment and I’ll spot you that way instead! (Don’t just say “great article” — that’s a proper turn-off)
If you haven’t signed up to Medium yet, my referral link awaits your click https://pireelua.medium.com/membership. To quote my wise friend, “this is where you can write shite and get paid for it.” I would never say anything that crass.
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