The More You Tag, The Less Meaningful It Is

Why I’m Annoyed By Articles That Tag A Bunch Of Writers

The other morning I woke up from my weed-induced slumber. I managed to drag myself out of bed and start my day. I got the coffee started and sat down to read some of my Medium notifications.

Oh, look! I was tagged in something! Let’s play a fucked up game of “Where’s Waldo” to find where exactly I was tagged.

I skim, and I skim, then I’m greeted by a massive wall of green writer’s tags.

By massive, I mean over 100 different writers tagged in this piece alone.

Has this happened to you?

@ MassTagging

I remember being a fresh budding writer on Medium about 6 months ago and just wishing to be tagged in something. Anything to help get my name out there. Here we are 6 months later and I’m finding myself annoyed more and more by it.

Mainly because people aren’t using the tags meaningfully. They are just slapping my name in their article, probably in the hope to get me to read their stuff.

It works… At least to some extent.

You never know if it was a meaningful tag or an annoying tag until you click on the article and skim through it to find where you were tagged. I’ve been finding myself tagged in giant writer tag walls more and more frequently lately.

Maybe because I’ve amassed over 1.5k followers? Maybe because people like me? I’m not sure why you would like me if you do, I actually urge you not to. It goes against my anti-everything agenda.

Whatever the reason, these writers are as cunning as that damn snake Adolf and Breeze saw while tripping on moldy weed.

By placing my name at the bottom of the article, I have to go all the way through whatever they wrote just to see where I was tagged which automatically gets them a read.

I may be a redneck, but I’m not stupid.

I see your game, other writers. I know what you are doing and it’s shady as fuck.

The More You Tag

Did you see this picture?

It has literally no context in this article at all. I chose it at random.

Looks to be some kind of dictionary. Fitting for a Medium article. However, it lacks any kind of context. Kind of like when I get tagged in a wall full of writers. It has no meaning or context behind it, I’m being tagged just for the sake of being tagged.

Also so I read their shit because everyone knows one of my weaknesses is allowing notifications to go unseen. I cannot stand not looking at an article where I’m being talked about.

However, when you tag that many writers it becomes less meaningful. By less meaningful I mean everyone doesn’t give a fuck. No one reads that article with over 100 tagged writers and clicks on each one to follow them or read some of their work.

Except maybe Jason Provencio, but he’s an exception. That crazy bastard follows 120 people a day so I could see him following every writer in that article.

See the above paragraph? See how I tagged Jason? That is a meaningful way to tag someone in a piece. It added value and it also helped promote my secret Medium love affair with Jason.

The more you do something, the less meaning something has. This goes for a lot of things. It’s kind of like the boy who cried wolf. If I keep getting mass tagged by someone, I’m not gonna fall for it the next time.

Could you have tagged me meaningfully the next time? Yeah, but I’m not gonna see it because you already annoyed me so I mentally marked you in my head as a shady shroom-induced snake that’s mining for reads. (Even if my secret OCD and curiosity will me to look, I will be strong.)

How Many Tags Are Too Many?

In my opinion, you can tag as much as you want as long as it’s meaningful.

“Wait! Rusty! You just said that if you tag a shit load of people in an article you get annoyed!”

Yeah, I did. The main takeaway here is “Meaningfully.”

If you do just a massive amount of tags at the end of an article with no context other than to tag them that isn’t meaningful.

As an experiment, let’s see if I can do the next paragraph by tagging as many fellow writers as I can while still doing it meaningfully. For science!

Gareth Willey has probably seen this phenomenon in his writing journey and I’m surprised he hasn’t written a funny UK article about it. Speaking of British twats, Grimsby Hackney could probably make some kind of newspaper heading article about it while calling me an insufferable arse hole. Maybe Robin Wilding 💎would come up with something funnier. She is a pretty funny girl. Her menstrual cup article had me laughing out loud. Laurel B. Miller as popular as she is for swearing at mommies could also weigh in on this matter. Perhaps Victor Cardenas “Mediums Most Sought After Sexy Writer” could do an investigation on this matter. He’s pretty good at putting time and effort into shit that doesn’t matter like Yana’s love interest. For that matter, maybe The Sturg could be his partner in crime on it.

Just like that, I was able to tag 6 writers in a meaningful, and funny way.

Now I would LOVE to be tagged like this. It shows that I pay attention to their writing while also giving them the respect of not including them in a massive wall of green tags. Each one had a special shout-out tailored to them.

Stop The Walls Of Tags

Not only are walls of tags annoying. They take so much time for someone to do. When we first came out and announced the BBB Discord server, Jason spent almost 3 hours just tagging everyone and making sure they were tagged so they knew and saw the post.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Your efforts are better spent writing another article or watching some porn. Either of those are more productive than spending your time tagging writers that don’t want the mention in a sea of tags that no one will bother reading.

Walls of tags are more detrimental to an article than anything. I see a massive wall of tags and I’m out. I yeet out of there faster than when I first started drinking Huel and felt the urge to shit. (My body was shocked by the amount of fiber.)

Just know that tagging has its place on Medium when used correctly. If it is used the way I’ve just described it’s a misuse of a useful tool and you are just coming off as a needy, attention-seeking, twat.

Your ‘Ford and Savior Rusty Christ has spoken.

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