The Secret World of OCD Medium Clappers and How We Support Claps

We spread joy in the shadows of Medium…but with an exact number of claps

I enjoy reading Medium stories as much as I like writing them.

Recently, I spent 10 straight hours reading stories, commenting on them, and clapping on them and their comments.

I’m in awe of really good writers. It doesn’t matter the genre of writing — good writing is good writing and should be appreciated. To appreciate writing is the highest honor you can give to a writer.

Appreciation can be in many forms. Clapping is one free way to show your appreciation on Medium.

I first discovered this secret society of OCD Medium clappers by accident.

But first, let me tell you a secret about Medium claps.

There’s an award system for clapping.

It’s not the same across all of Medium and, in fact, it greatly varies from person to person. Here’s my specific system:

• 1 clap = the Medium story/comment was decent
• 2–10 claps = I agreed with the story/comment, especially if it took a “stance”
• 11–40 claps = I enjoyed the story/comment a lot and it made me feel something
• 41–50 claps = the story/comment is underappreciated and was amazingly good

Whatever award system you use, my experience is that most people will use a round number of claps: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50. Some folks oscillate between 1 and 50 and don’t stray to any of the numbers in-between. Some folks only award 1 clap total.

I try not to judge. You’ll see why in a second.

So what does all of this have to do with the secret society of OCD Medium Clappers? In this secret society, we take a more methodical and deliberate approach to clapping.

We clap based on what the final number of claps will be.

We round up the total number of claps.

Here’s how it works. If a story/comment currently has 97 claps and falls into the second level of I “agree” with it, it will get 3 claps. Because 97 + 3 = 100 and the goal is to land on a round number.

If a story/comment currently has 84 claps and falls into the 3rd level of “I enjoyed it a lot”, it would get 16 claps to round up to 100.

Now, the final number of claps doesn't have to be a multiple of 100 (as that would be impossible with a cap of 50 claps per story). But the number of claps given has to round up the total at that moment in time.

Here are some more examples:

• 3 claps → 4 claps because “it was decent”
• 14 claps → 20 claps because “I agreed” with it
• 5 claps → 50 claps because it was “amazingly good”

Do we worry when another person claps and the rounded number gets destroyed? No. We’d die a crushing death knowing we can’t help the situation if we’ve maxed out on claps for that particular story.

We read the story. We think about how many claps to award. We clap. We leave.

Some of your minds have just exploded. I get it. This is kinda nuts. But it also isn’t.

Would you rather have 1 clap on your story or 20? Because a lot of Medium writers are getting 0 or 1 claps.

Even deliberate, crazy clapping is better than no clapping.

Why do we do this? Did you read the part where I used the operative word “OCD”?

Someone like me even took the time to make some videos about it. Here’s one that shows how to clap on a 4+ digit total clap number. Hint: you have to clap once, pause to see the number change to a more specific number, then add more claps.

Yep. OCD, folks.

I know some of you are dying to ask a question right now. If you can clap up to 50 times per story, why not just clap 50 times for every story — that’s a nice round number, isn't it?

That would certainly make it easy, wouldn’t it? And there are web browser plug-ins that do exactly that with the push of a single button.

But it wouldn’t make the voting accurate. That’s like saying we should score surveys on a scale of Yes or No. Sometimes that works. Like those bathroom voting systems in airports — did you enjoy a clean bathroom today? Green thumbs up or red thumbs down?

And it doesn’t round up the total number of claps, which is the key element with this secret society.

When you have millions of stories that are using an algorithm to determine whether or not each one should be recommended to others, do you want to rely on a binary scoring system? It doesn’t work.

Some people don’t understand the depths of OCD, and that’s OK. And to be fair, the depths are varied, like really varied. I’m using it in a super loose, not-medically classified kind of way.

Some of us have just a flavor of OCD. Not enough to be declared clinically, but just enough to keep life interesting.

Happy clapping!

• In case it wasn’t obvious, this piece is satire.
• But wait, did you just realize you’re a member of this secret society? Well then forget the above and welcome!

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