The Reason You’re Not Getting Boosted

Do you suffer from Boost Envy? Why are others getting boosted, and not you?

There’s a new disease spreading around on Medium. It has all the veracity of chlamydia, without the solution of a quick dose of antibiotics. It’s called Boost Envy.

I suffer from Boost Envy (BE). The symptoms of BE include: dry mouth, agitation, heart palpitations, facial tics, and a burning desire to throw your computer out the window. The struggle is real people.

This communicable disease spreads quickly amongst social groups but due to the stigma of not being boosted, its sufferers often do so in silence.

You might be at risk if someone you know has contracted the boost.

While there is no cure, this disease can be effectively managed with the correct information and self-care.

Why Some Catch the Boost While Others Remain Unaffected

Ok, this analogy is quickly losing steam so I’ll drop the pretense. If you’re anything like me you’re suffering from boost envy because you’ve seen others get Medium’s new boost. And you’re super happy for them. Err…right?

I am incredibly happy that I’ve seen some of my Medium friends get the boost. Genuinely. However I then fervently go to their boosted story to find the magic sauce they clearly discovered upon.

If you’ve done this you’ve probably seen the same thing I did. There doesn’t appear to be a magic sauce. Not even a mildly-potent marinara. One of my friends, Gareth Willey, had an article that got boosted (and wrote an article about getting boosted). It was the second in a series — and even he admits that the first one should have logically been boosted over the second.

It was a beautiful photo essay and deserved the boost — but it should have been the first part of the series, not part two.

It was clearly selected algorithmically and not by a human. And I think the algorithm was drunk, on that one at least.

Out of the people I’ve seen boosted, I honestly don’t think they are better writers than I am, or the best writers on the platform. They are very good, I follow them for a reason. Some are newer to the platform, and some have been around a little while. They write in different categories, and on different topics. So why them — and not you or me? But mainly me (another symptom of BE is a dissolution of verbal filters).

The answer is simple: not everyone can get the boost. If Medium suddenly gives everyone a push in views simultaneously…then literally no one is boosted. The creation of the boost didn’t suddenly create more readers.

It is a zero-sum game.

Medium Neither Confirm Nor Denies This — “It’s Complicated”

When the boost first came out I immediately had a concern that boosting some peoples’ articles will replace the rest of us in Medium feeds. How could it not, the boost didn’t suddenly onboard more readers, nor did it magically add more hours to our days to spend reading.

So I asked Medium CEO, Tony Stubblebine:

I could have phrased it a little better, but you get the point. If it was true that they are only boosting the most worthy stories I would be a little happier with the answer of ‘you’re not worthy’. But from my friend Gareth’s example above, that story was chosen by an algorithm, not a person. And it chose poorly.

So you and I aren’t getting boosted, simply because not everyone can be.

The plan I am using to cure myself of Boost Envy is a simple injection of reality. The boost won’t come for me, I’ll just keep plugging along, creating the content that I like writing about, and reading the content of others that tickles my fancy that day. Just like before the boost.