To All Illumination Detractors — A Respectful Yet Befitting Response
Mud-slinging will most often stain your own clothes too.
See the image I chose? This looks like Rugby — and I am no expert, but what’s clear is when anything gets dirty — whether a game of rugby or a silly act of mud-slinging between a group of adults — there’s no side that comes out clean.
Especially, when we’re talking about “supposed” intellectuals who call themselves writers — including the likes of you and I — it isn’t very polite to sit and point fingers and get into debates that have no winner.
Yet, sometimes, staying quiet is not the right strategy. But most definitely, getting in a battle of verbal diarrhea is a worse strategy.
Fundamentally, as writers, our words don’t just make a point or put together a story, they also define who we are in many ways. So, it is only rational to make them truly measured and show who we truly are, and allow others to be who they are — and learn to agree to disagree.
This last bit — agreeing to disagree — is an art that’s long forgotten, it so seems.
Before getting too philosophical let’s get to the point. This whole post is in response to hundreds of comments on Illumination that I’ve heard but specifically in response to Sherry McGuinn — a great writer, and a former Illumination writer, who didn’t agree with the ways of the publication and moved on. But I promised her a response to this comment, so it’s only fair I tag her.
Here’s the response — here’s the link if you want to track the origins of the discussion:
No thanks. I’m not into running numbers, nor am I good at it. I believe I stated that the pub features many great writers like Britni Pepper and Helen Cassidy Page and more. In fact, yours truly used to publish there but, when I had the temerity to criticize the drop in quality, I was cut. And THAT’S why I call it a “cult.’
I’ll stand by my opinion and, just for your edification, there are plenty of writers here who agree with me. Who don’t want their work tainted by a sea of crap. One more thing: What is the point of comparing Illumination with The Ascent? None that I can see.
A brief background of Illumination
I haven’t asked anyone to fact-check this so I probably will be partially correct, but broadly accurate to give you a fair sense of the situation. Medium has thousands of publications, and Illumination is just another one of them.
It was started by Dr Mehmet Yildiz, a writer, and person, just like many of us, trying to make it on Medium.
The publication started around March 2020, and today has 93k followers — which is no small number in such a short span of time.
Along the way, the above-said man, Dr. Yildiz, has taken along a long list of people in the journey — editors, writers, readers — a couple of hundred editors across his publication suite (current and past), a few thousand writers, and tens of thousands of readers.
When you’re talking about that scale of numbers, there’s bound to be a difference of opinion, which is understandable, but here’s what’s not understandable or acceptable.
Illumination is not a “Cult” as it is often called — here’s why
Let’s define a cult. And yes, I am going to refer to a Wikipedia link — it isn’t the most scientific thing to do, but the reality is any of you who Googles the word — that’s what you’ll see, and it is fairly accurate.
In modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal.
There are two sets of arguments for why Illumination is a cult — and I’ll say why they’re fundamentally inaccurate.
#1 — Because everyone in the Illumination inner-circle blindly follows Dr Mehmet Yildiz
A cult has to have either a central figure who people blindly follow or a set of “unusual beliefs” that they believe in that makes them stand out from the “broader world” and so they usually don’t fit in.
The first element that has to be addressed is the founder. There are some people that question his credentials — he claims to be a technologist with an illustrious background which I have no interest in getting into.
Do I believe it? Yes. Do I care? No.
Why? Because this is Medium. Here, to me, he is a writer and an owner of a publication and nothing more. His stories seem credible to me, and the persona behind what we know as Dr. Yildiz seems legit enough. I don’t care if he is all he claims to be or if he is pretending to be someone he isn’t.
For all I care, the things that relate to me — all seem legit. He responds, speaks, connects, writes, and does everything like a legit writer would do. He runs a publication that has a very well-defined goal (which we will get to) which resonates with me, and so I am voluntarily an editor and supporter of what he does.
He’s had ZERO influence in what I say, do, write on Medium — everything I say is voluntary and I don’t care if he agrees or disagrees — I am a 32-year-old independent guy with his own viewpoint.
I don’t worship him or idolize him — while respecting him — I sure do. Because that’s what he’s earned in my mind.
There are other editors and supporters of Medium that are strong, independent people in their own right — whose combined achievements will dwarf those of most other subsets of people on Medium — but none of us is claiming to be any kind of stars or superpowers — we’re all worker bees, trying to help fellow writers as we go along.
#2 — We’ve got some “unusual” belief or philosophy we all follow
For any writer or editor on Illumination — there’s one very basic rule. That’s all you need to meet to be able to publish on the publication. I’ll say it in my words — and you tell me HOW in the world is it unusual or something that is “niche” in any way. To me, it is by far the most inclusive publication that there is.
All we ask our writers is to follow Medium guidelines, and submit their work, and we’ll publish if those are followed. We avoid certain topics that we don’t really specialize in and that’s a very small set. There’s hardly ever a “rejection” on Illumination that’s not well-explained with a comment and is based on “oh you don’t meet our standards so, fuck off.”
That’s just not what we do. A LOT of people have an issue with that. Here’s why.
- Publishing just about everything that broadly fits Medium guidelines means that the quality of all stories on the publication is not the same. Fair point, accepted, let’s move on.
- This also means that a great story may get lost in a sea of more ordinary stories — agreed. We don’t claim to be a “choicest of stories” type offering. There are others on Medium who are STRICT and claim to know the secret of calling one story better than the other — we leave that job to them.
Why these issues are non-issues? Here’s why.
Every publication has a goal. Some of the best ones on Medium — The Ascent, Start It Up, The Writing Cooperative, P.S. I Love You — all great pubs and ones that I frequently write for too, as do many other editors and writers of Illumination — have a different goal. They choose to publish only the stories that meet their criteria of topic alignment, quality based on the judgment of their own editors, formatting, a certain level of language and grammar, and a variety of other characteristics. This also means not everyone can get accepted into these pubs — and so it isn’t easy to publish with them.
Illumination’s goal is different. The goal for them is to provide a democratic platform to EVERYONE who would like to write something that fits some very basic criteria — mostly to do with Medium guidelines, because hey, that’s the master platform, and breaking those rules benefits no one.
It’s a bit like Medium — Medium allows people to publish almost everything — they don’t filter for quality, or stop certain things that they don’t agree with. Why no mud-slinging and calling Medium a cult?
Some people may not agree to this approach as editors of Illumination — but the reality is — none of us BUILT the pub. Dr. Yildiz did. He invited us to be editors as COMPLETE VOLUNTEERS and isn’t forcing anyone to comply. If you disagree with the philosophy — the door’s open, and you’re welcome to leave — most of the time on very happy terms, and you can still be friends.
The same goes for writers. If you think Illumination doesn’t offer you the right platform, i.e. your “quality stories” get lost in the crowd of “crap stories” — that’s your call — there are hundreds of thousands of other publications out there.
We’re not here to serve the finest of Sushi at a premium price point — we’re fine with offering Mac and Cheese to those who can only afford that, but also here with some finest of foods if that’s what catches your fancy. We’re just not setting filters and price points that by definition EXCLUDE a whole set of writers who are probably just starting out and need a place to find their feet.
No writer was born a star — stars are made. We like to grow together.
On the whole concept of “crap vs. high-quality” stories.
First of all, unless you’re J.K. Rowling or Salman Rushdie, and have sold millions of copies of dozens of books, and the world agrees you’re some kind of writing legend, please don’t feel entitled to call one story crap and another gold.
Medium has hundreds of thousands of “writers” who all know how to write a word on paper, or a computer, but the quality of all of it is a matter of subjectivity.
Well, yes, some will have a bad command of the English language — because hey we aren’t all native English speakers, but that by definition doesn’t mean their ideas and thoughts and beliefs are trash.
Sometimes grammatically ill-written stories have more soul than a grammatically perfect soul-less piece.
But I won’t call one better than the other, because who am I?
But that also holds true for you. Who are you? Let’s not take ourselves too seriously now.
Before I go — only fair to tag some of the current set of editors of Illumination — because none of them will have seen this story before I hit publish — so I don’t want any surprises.
Dr Mehmet Yildiz Joe Luca Arthur G. Hernandez Tree Langdon Bill Abbate Dr Michael Heng Geetika Sethi Britni Pepper Dew Langrial Lanu Pitan Agnes Laurens Sumera Rizwan Liam Ireland Neha Sandhir S Ntathu Allen Thewriteyard Maria Rattray Dr. Preeti Singh Terry L. Cooper Holly Kellums Marcus Sabana Grande Noorain Hassan, BMS janny’s heart Claire Kelly Josh Balerite Acol ILLUMINATION
I could go on and on, but no matter how rationally rooted, all rants have to end. And so this one will, too.