The Overwhelming Entitlement of the Internet Writer
An Essay For Modern Creatives
Everyone needs a come-to-Jesus moment. No, not the religious kind. The kind perfectly described by Urban Dictionary as follows:
An epiphany in which one realizes the truth of a matter; a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something; coming clean and admitting failures; realizing the true weight or impact of a negative situation or fact; acknowledgment that one must get back to core values; moment of realization; an aha moment; moment of decision; moment of truth; critical moment; moment of reassessment of priorities; turning point; life-changing moment.
Yeah, all of that. And no one is in more need of one of these moments than the Internet Writer. Awash with a quixotic mix of boisterous ego and self-flagellation, the Internet Writer is highly reactionary. Even the slightest drop of criticism sends the Internet Writer into a tailspin. Even when it’s universally warranted.
I have to tell you, I’ve been the Internet Writer. It’s why I left Medium the first time. I thought I knew better than Medium. I thought I knew better than all of the publications. I thought my views were always right and everyone else’s were wrong. Then I took a break. And during my break, I had a come-to-Jesus moment with myself. And I needed it.
But now even with Zen clarity on my side, I find myself enmeshed with those with the same hyper fixated bravado that plagued me for so long. It’s really based on the overwhelming entitlement of the Internet Writer and it is maddening.
The Internet Writer
The Internet Writer may not be you, but you may see them all around you. You may have even had momentary blips where you became the Internet Writer. We all have. It’s really ok. But until that mirror is deep and the Internet Writer can really see the outline of the person they used to be in the mirror, they won’t get it. They are probably fuming right now.
The Internet Writer views curatorial and editorial restrictions as elitist herding mechanisms. As in, you can’t tell me what to write, how to write it, or how to format it. I am my own person and you should still publish anything I write, even though it’s your brick wall on the Internet and I am welcome to create my own.
The Internet Writer is constantly removing their stories and reposting them in hopes that the computer will favor them more the second or third time. Like, in no way could it be that the piece just wasn’t good or was meant to start slowly.
The Internet Writer follows you so you will follow them. They don’t read your work. Actually, the Internet Writer doesn’t read anybody’s work because they are so obsessed with their own, there just isn’t room.
The Internet Writer freaks out when you mention that following 8.3k people, who all write multiple works a day, seems like a technique and not an inherently smart way to read more.
The Internet Writer refreshes their stats twelve times a day and sends emails to Medium asking how it’s possible that a story has not been curated yet, after 47 minutes and 11 seconds. Then, when it doesn’t get curated, they immediately blame the story’s failure on the publication that they chose to submit it to.
The Internet Writer thinks they are somebody more than you are somebody. That is, until you tell them something that they don’t like, then you are an overlord, and they a disgruntled servant who is lost under your rule.
The Internet Writer thinks that fairness is only about what is fair to them in a given moment of time, not what is objectively fair to all those involved. The Internet Writer always wants special treatment.
The Internet Writer gets mad when you block them because they feel that it’s censorship and they have the right to free speech. Read that again. And yes, this really happens. The Internet Writer thinks that you are censoring them for not wanting to see their work in your feed.
Pause
I’ve been the Internet Writer. I get it. But if you are mad now, you have to realize that you are calling yourself out. So somewhere inside you know this is all true or at least a satirical view of reality for many creatives who are so wrapped up inside of their ego that they can’t see the street signs right in front of them asking them to yield, if only for a second.
After I came back to Medium, I asked to join a publication that I was fond of in my first go. The owner rejected me, noting my previous pontifications about Medium as an area of concern. The Internet Writer in me wanted to lash out and send a disdainful email, but the come-to-Jesus in me knew that the owner had every right to be concerned.
I’ve been you. I’ve been them.
“Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.” — Marian Wright Edelman
The Internet Writer Continued
The Internet Writer likes to write 578-word comments on your published work, instead of just writing a story on their own page. When you hide their comment/diatribe, they claim censorship (this is a recurring theme).
The Internet Writer thinks this piece is rife with entitlement and that even a self-own is hypocrisy and will comment about it down below. But really what is going on inside of the Internet Writer is a feeling of getting hit too close to home.
The Internet Writer doesn’t even notice when you @ them in a weekly wrap-up or tag them in their own story on Twitter. They don’t read your weekly newsletters or your emails, but when they realize they missed something, it’s your fault.
The Internet Writer doesn’t help other writers. Not. Ever. The only words the Internet Writer cares about are their own. So if the Internet Writer has a publication, you will find their works always front and center.
The Internet Writer thinks that the value of their work can be judged by a system of claps or scrolls (that is so easily and intentionally manipulated) or payrolls, unless an automaton does not curate it. Then the system is broken to the core.
The Internet Writer constantly lashes out at the very platform that houses their work (my old specialty) and does so under the guise of trying to make the system better, which always means getting them more views, more followers, and more money.
The Internet Writer puts their badges in their profile and on their LinkedIn profile. No, you don’t work for Medium because you have a publication on Medium. No, Top Writer is not a real thing, it is based on a computer calculation.
The Internet Writer spends a lot of time in Facebook Groups talking about “writing” instead of actually writing. In those same groups, the Internet Writers like to ban together to “support” each other by blindly usurping the system to pay each other more pocket change.
The Internet Writer always wants your feedback on their new piece, unless your feedback is negative or critical in any way. At that point, the Internet Writer dismisses all of your edits and submits the story the exact same way as they wanted it.
The Internet Writer immediately posts their stories on every social media channel and also asks their friends to please read what they wrote. The Internet Writer then gets mad when no one leaves a comment on said work.
Pause
It’s ok to be the Internet Writer from time to time. But when you can’t see yourself as that person, you are missing what everyone else is seeing. Your friends don’t care about your writing. Feeling obligated to read something is one of the worst feelings. Your following isn’t real, it’s just a pile of numbers on a screen of people who may or may not get notified of your next work.
Your Internet Writer status will fade. Faster than you think. Because it’s really just a mirage. The second you think it means something is the second you lose yourself. I am just a writer on the Internet. You are just a writer on the Internet. There are better writers than all of us here who never publish words on the Internet.
I don’t have a poetry book deal. You don’t have a book deal. Thought Catalog is not something to tout as contributor status on your resume. You aren’t someone because one piece got 10,000 fake claps on the Internet because you happened to hit the right button on the slot machine that day. You aren’t special. Neither am I.
“Entitlement is the opposite of enchantment.” — Guy Kawasaki
The Internet Writer Continued
The Internet Writer writes on topics they are wildly uneducated about just because they are trending. When someone exposes them for it, they cite free speech as rhetoric.
The Internet Writer wants to write for your publication, but they list their favorite Medium writer as “Don’t got one” and their reason for wanting to publish with you as “to grow their following.”
The Internet Writer is actually not a very good linguist or wordsmith. They use a rubric mentality to try to get things curated. If I put x, y, and z into this piece, it is more likely to get curated so I will put x, y, and z into this piece no matter what.
The Internet Writer is always a victim and that inherent victimhood is included in many daily rants and self-published diary entries all about how they have been aggrieved online or in life. (Note: I am not talking about real victims of any form of abuse, aggressive trolling, sexism, racism, or xenophobia. I am talking about victimhood as a content creation mechanism that continually devalues the real victims of serious crimes, bias, and hate.)
The Internet Writer writes a lot about life lessons. Except they have not actually experienced any of these lessons, but have culled these principles from a couple of books and a Tim Ferriss podcast.
The Internet Writer sends you their piece that was rejected by three other publications and forgets to delete their private notes. They also don’t take any of the suggestions in the notes before submitting the piece to you.
The Internet Writer likes to @ a lot of other writers at the bottom of their essay, but not to pay homage to them or even compliment them, just to get them to read the work.
The Internet Writer sends you a private email asking how many followers your publication has because they’d like to know before they submit a story. You check their profile and they are following 4.7k writers and are followed by 136.
Final Pause
I have done a majority of these things at one point or another so if you are bent out of shape, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m calling my past behavior out as much as I am calling you out. Maybe you are calling yourself out. Maybe you know.
“Any critic is entitled to wrong judgments, of course. But certain lapses of judgment indicate the radical failure of an entire sensibility.” — Susan Sontag
Where did we lose our way as writers? When did the reactionary numbers of our words, when the distribution is controlled by a computer program, become a measuring stick for some veiled idea of success as a creative? When did we become so entitled?
Don’t shy away from your failures as an Internet Writer. Own them. Understand them. And if you really decide you want to be that kind of Internet Writer, own that. But please, take the entitlement somewhere else. Everyone sees it but you. And yes, I am always talking to myself when I am also talking to you.
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