Signs You’ve Made It on Medium
These are reliable markers of super-status, but you may not like all of them
Making a wad of money is traditionally a sign that one has “made it” in life. A person thus blessed often feels tempted to show it by splashing out on a fancy house or car.
It becomes immediately apparent why the money metric doesn’t work for Medium. Unless your idea of a fancy house is a cardboard box with both air holes and door flaps you can tape shut, you aren’t going to be buying one with your Medium earnings. (I suppose, though, you can draw some wheels on the corners and have it double as your imaginary sports car.)
The status-seeking author thus needs to turn to less conventional metrics to see if their star has been set in the firmament. Here are four candidates for your consideration.
1. You’ve attracted a copycat
Bonus points for attracting multiple copycats. Your friends will lie to you about how great you are. They mean well. A scammer will also lie to you, but it’s to steal your money, not to make you feel better.
When a scammer duplicates your identity and uses it to dupe your loyal readers into clicking on their scam, that’s a sure sign your profile is big enough to be worth their while.
Cynics among you might wonder if the scammer rather believes that your followers are easily gullible. I can see a case for it, but I wouldn’t worry about it. The scammers are not that sophisticated but are playing a numbers game. A numbers game that means you’re winning when your face comes up.
2. The rich and famous spend time on your stories
This is a variation on the scammer duplicating your account in which they duplicate the account of an even more well-known personality — say a U.S. President or famous actor.
I’ve had President Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger leave me kind comments. How strange that with such generous behavior, they appear to have attracted just two followers.
What’s as interesting to me as the thrill I felt upon seeing their names show up in my notifications were the few seconds in which I believed these people would read one of my stories.
Does my ego know no limits?
The scam here is twofold. First, a writer may have a sufficiently towering ego that it overrides their instinct for self-preservation and they click on the scammer’s link. It turns out my ego does have limits. Whew!
Second, even if the writer catches the scammer’s trick, a subsequent comment reader may be fooled. That the scammer chose your story on which to play their dirty tricks signifies your stardom.
3. Grandma Smillew starts writing stories about you
Although this signifies stardom, a story by Grandma Smillew is a decidedly mixed blessing. That’s because she (and to a lesser extent her indirect brood, Smillew Rahcuef) is insightful, canny, and ruthless.
Grandma picks stories to pick apart because of their content and their authors. The content must be interesting enough to draw her attention and, critically, contain a flaw (or ten) that she can highlight. The author must be prominent enough that it’s worth her while to do so. After all, the Smillew family name stands for shameless self-interest.
Of all the signs of Medium stardom, I admit to liking this one the best. I’m no masochist, but I remind myself of the Stoic lesson that a sincere student benefits from honest feedback, no matter the intentions of the deliveror. In any event, I’ve never observed Grandma’s attention to be (a) entirely (or even mostly) wrong, or (b) mean-spirited. What an opportunity for self-reflection and improvement!
Plus, just because they’re helping themselves doesn’t mean the Smillews aren’t helping you, the author. I’ve seen Junior creatively call out and support writers and their stories countless times. Thus, if your ego is feeling fragile that day, you can tell yourself you’re just getting a helping hand, not a roast, no matter how it looks.
4. You have a recognizable writing nickname
When I say nickname, note I am not talking about a mere nom de plume used instead of one’s real name. In today’s scary world (see items 1–3 above), taking sensible precautions to protect your identity is understandable.
Nicknames on Medium come in two flavors. First are those that apply directly to the writer on their singular profile; call them pure nicknames. For example, I guess many of you don’t have to guess who would respond to the call for Amateur Twatopotamus. No, the one-profile pure nickname is a sign of reader affection that, if sufficiently used, means one’s nickname is widely recognized.
None other than the Twatopotamus herself recently called me “the esteemed and venerable Grand Poobah.” Please, please make it stick. I will, however, consider any suggestions left in the comments.
The second flavor of nickname is the alter ego associated with a writer’s additional profile(s). The Professor of Medium, say, or Coach Robin. I will say nothing further about the extended Smillew clan. This multi-profile alter ego is a sign of greatness so vast that it cannot be contained in a single human vessel.
There may be a fault in our stars
Based on these criteria, you too may be a Medium superstar once or many times over. In which case congratulations are in order.
Congratulations!
Before you celebrate overmuch, however, consider that all four of the success standards have this in common: they all involve something fake. On the one hand, nothing could be more delightful or appropriate. After all, what is writing except an exercise in deliberate fiction? Even non-fiction is filled with considerably more omission than inclusion.
On the other hand (as all good lawyers eventually say), a writer’s superstar status here tells us nothing about them as a real person.
I love the superstars, don’t get me wrong. But I don't mistake their writing for anything other than that — stories. Stories in which they choose to reveal some things and hide others. Even if they write with brutal honesty about the most intimate details of their lives, it’s just a snapshot and we have no way of knowing the truth or completeness of it.
Said differently (which would be a great name for a new publication here), whether you’ve made it already on Medium or you feel like you’re struggling in obscurity, don’t let it go to your head.
It’s just a moment in time and says nothing about the real you.
Be well.
If this story got into your head, the best way to get it out is to replace it with other, more thoughtful pieces. There’s a chance you’ll find just that if you subscribe to read mine.