THE SECRETS OF WRITING ON MEDIUM, PART 20

The Top 7 Reasons Why I’m Being Distributed by the Almighty Algorithm

And why it’s not important¹

I’ve only got three words to say for today: WTF?

I didn’t notice it at first, but I have been released from Curgatory, that sad, lonely, anonymous place where all your creative children vanish without a trace.

Big E and the corporate overlords of this gamified, addictive lunatic asylum decided to restructure the company by following Stalin’s plans for the Russian officer corps. Now. my stories are being distributed like hotcakes at a school fundraiser. (And that is not a compliment to the pancakes.)

I wasn’t aware of this glorious policy reversal because you can’t see distribution on your stats page. This screenshot from the good old days of 2019 shows where a story got featured.

On the individual article stats page, text indicated the topic where curators lifted your creative little Simba to the heavens at Pride Rock as the entire jungle roared in praise.

But now, you just see the line “Chosen for further distribution” without any indication of where the story is featured.

In my latest distributed story, I don’t know if they featured it in “Fake News” or “Fatal Method Acting.”

How the fuck do I find those topics on the home page?

Besides ranting about the fake distribution of my fake news story, what’s wrong with the editors in these publications?

Christine Stevens, why did you accept my turd of a story?

Couldn’t you show the tiniest shred of humanity to save me from humiliating myself? Who publishes a story about James Lipton when no one under 30 — in other words, 90% of the readers — knows what I’m talking about?

What did I ever do to you?

All of these suspicious distribution events demanded a deeper dive. But who would ever be dumb enough to waste the time to do the research?

You’re welcome.

Since February, 16 out of 22 my stories were distributed. Even my tech bro homage “Dreck for Sheckles” was distributed, the first time ever for a song parody.

There’s something wrong, something sinister, something bordering on demonic when the curation staff shows favorable treatment to someone like me. I don’t fit the right demographic. (And yes, ageism is the last accepted prejudice.)

Consider the following:

Jesus walked on water, and he only got curated by 4 out of 11 surviving Apostles, a distribution rate of 36.6%.

My distribution success rate is 72.7%.

Do you know what that means?

I need to start asking for donations!

Seriously, I should create some shitty online writing class and charge $19.99 for it. The first person who signs up will get a special prize!²

But enough of this shameless self-promotion. You want answers to the burning question of distribution, so put on some oven mitts because these answers are hot off the griddle.

The top 7 reasons why stories are being distributed by the almighty algorithm.

#1. To promote the site by making people talk

The site we all write on that may or may not be mentioned in this publication — depending on the mood of Susan Brearley, head pirate — needs to keep people playing the game.

If you can make more money per hour from collecting bottles and cans on the street than by writing, what’s the point?

To keep people interested, they do random shit every few months. They will change the payment system, give an unofficial, unpaid site advocate a free t-shirt (even if it had an out-of-date logo, Roz), or pretend to be Oprah for a day. You know, like proclaim “YOU get $500! And YOU get $500!” to everyone in the audience.

Except for the other 99.9% of us.

#2. To distract you from the fact you’re still earning bupkis

For those of you unfamiliar with this technical term, bupkis is what you get for producing dreck. I hope that’s clear to all of you now.

#3. Because Ev replaced the curation staff with homeless guys who do not read

Based on the way my ridiculous fictional interview with Samuel L. Jackson was accepted for publication and then distributed, it’s clear nobody vets my stories. They just happen to like the pictures.

#4. A disgruntled programmer changed the algorithm to distribute stories like that female bot on Grammarly who says, “looking good!”

Grammarly doesn’t ask a lot of you. Just make sure to hyphenate all your multi-word descriptions, run the spell check, and add lots of Oxford commas. You will get this message.

For the last two years, I haven’t changed my writing style or put more work into editing my stories. (Sadly, that should be apparent to everyone.) And yet, here we are. I have entered distribution nirvana and this is the algorithm’s response:

#5. Gutbloom asked to see his own stories in his feed, even if no one else sees them. Maybe the powers that be decided this is an efficient method to keep the natives from getting restless.

I was not kidding about being unable to find the topic that featured my latest story. I used the tags Humor, Writing, and Fiction besides the silly ones. If a distributed story does not appear under a featured topic, how is it being promoted?

Maybe the whole thing is like the Matrix. Our virtual taskmasters encourage us to keep writing by plugging us into a virtual reality that only exists on our personal home pages.

Sign me up for the red pill.

#6. After the purge, no one is left who hates my guts.

I’ve often said, “if the algorithm were a hamster, I can understand why it would hate my guts.” Somebody strongly objected to the way I prodded and poked at the system to learn their game.

Who knows? Maybe the algorithm has feelings. How else do you explain why they gaslight writers with these vacuous proclamations about how they value quality instead of high-quality writing? Quality is a word roared by people to justify their bullshit.

If quality is so important, why would they promote some articles that clearly violate the curation guidelines? It’s as if this place is trying to become the next Facebook.

#7. Distribution is not the same thing as curation.

Curation is defined as follows:

“The action or process of selecting, organizing, and looking after the items in a collection or exhibition,” typically “using professional or expert knowledge.”

Before the purge, curators were expert judges — even if they were minimum wage workers who thought YA books represented the pinnacle of human expression.

Not only was their idea of great literature The Hunger Games, but those books inform their approach to picking out high-quality stories.

On the other hand, distribution is defined as follows:

“The process of giving things out to several people, or spreading or supplying something.”

Like a Roman aqueduct, anything and everything can get pulled along in the water, regardless of its merit. (This article serving as exhibit #1.)

Distribution is not going to cure lousy writing.

The writers on this site seem to fall into two groups: people who complain about others and people with real troubles who write from the heart. (Yes, I fall into the first category.)

On one end of the spectrum, you have a talented writer who seems to have given up on writing. Instead, they complain in a serious, whiny, and unfunny way about the success of no-talent writers who write dog shit articles about how to be a successful writer.

I’ve been writing about the difference between bloggers who write and writers who blog for a long time. If you can’t educate, illuminate or entertain people, why are you even writing?

While I agree there are popular, but terrible articles by s̶n̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶o̶i̶l̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶e̶s̶m̶a̶n̶ content marketers, the writer in question is doing the equivalent of taking a dump at the dog park to complain about all the other people who let their dogs leave a mess.

My advice is don’t stand in the middle of the park screaming for attention while you drop trou and paint the town brown. Show some decency and do it behind a tree. And say excuse me before you hit the publish button. (Excuse me.)

But good writing might cure what ails you.

On the other end of the spectrum, I read a series of beautiful, loving, funny, and heartbreaking stories by Kristi Keller. She has achieved a whole new level as a writer as she mourns and processes the loss of her beloved son.

I can’t envy her ability to bring tears to her readers’ eyes because the cost of losing a child is far too great and one I hope I never have to pay.

Instead, I dance around the edges, trying to share some laughter or professional experience.

Why it doesn’t matter

Nothing has changed for me during this bizarre run of distribution good fortune. My writing hasn’t changed, my stats are still in the toilet, and the money is still bupkis.

What you do with the time you spend with friends and loved ones is the only thing that matters.

Just listen to Grammarly.

FOOTNOTES:

¹This cringeworthy headline scored a 93 on the CoScheduler Headline Analyzer. Try to beat that without going into full clickbait mode.

²Funds from your purchase will exceed my total earnings on the distributed articles. I will send you a t-shirt stained with my tears of gratitude.