To The Medium Curator Who’s Reading This Right Now

Hey. My name’s Tom.

I know you’re reading this, Medium curator.

How’s it going?

I don’t know much about you — well, I don’t know ANYTHING about you — but I do know you exist.

I guess you’re kind of like Oxygen…. or a fart. We can’t see you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not there.

I have so many questions for you now that I have your attention!

I wonder what you think of your job. Seriously. How crappy must it be to look over dozens of stories every hour ranging from Chrissy Teigen’s public apology, what somebody learned when they rode a horse that one time, and the influencer who realized that if they put “Medium” and “$10,000” in the same headline, literally everybody will click on it?

What do you think about those articles that promise you you’ll improve 100000000000000000000X in five minutes if you read it? What do you think about Tim Denning? Please tell me.

How many articles do you look at per day, too?

Is it 20, 30, 50, or over 100? Have you ever written before yourself? Do you write online at all? Would you curate your own articles?

While we’re at it, let’s talk about how you know the difference between a “good” story and a bad one.

Well, how do you know? Exactly how much clickbait is acceptable, oh gatekeeper?

What part of the world do you live in, too? Is this a full-time thing or a part-time side gig for you?

WE WANT TO KNOW.

For some reason, Medium is about as transparent about their curators as stool water.

Sometimes thinking about Medium in general is just as appetizing as thinking about stool water, too.

What is it like to work for Medium, by the way?

It seems Medium changes their mind about the future every two days.

Now for the craziest question of all..

Do you even, like, give a shit about Medium?

Is it just a paycheck for you? How much joy do you really glean from curating stories people write about the threesomes they had back in college?

Uh-Oh. I don’t think Medium put that in the job description, did they?

This is probably a first for you. Someone speaking to you directly. I mean, I’m also speaking to my audience — well, they can see what I’m saying to you right now I mean — but this is probably the first time you’ve been addressed directly.

I wish I knew your name. Is it Peter, or Francesca, or X Æ A-12?

Do you watch TV shows? OOOHH! Did you watch Loki yet? Oh my god, anonymous internet person, you really need to see it! It’s fucking awesome.

On the real, I do wish I knew you. I wish we knew the people who controlled the fate of our articles. I wish we could have discussions and get honest feedback about WHY our articles weren’t curated.

Instead we get a cold yes or no from some stranger doubling as a Medium god.

And when we get a no, it’s never a straightforward no. It’s always a “Well, it’s been 3 days and my article doesn’t have that curated message on the stats page so I guess I’m screwed.”

I’ve been on Medium for five years. I’ve generated millions of views for this platform. While I’ve been paid for those views since about 2018, I still haven’t talked to many people inside Medium at all.

It’s almost like they — gasp — don’t really give that much of a shit about us.

I wish they valued the opinions of their OG writers a bit more. Oh, do you know what OG means? It means Original Gangster, or in other words, somebody who’s been here for a long long time.

I hate the lack of transparency. I hate that we send in our articles to a faceless team of Medium gods who get to decide whether we get views or not.

Shouldn’t that, like, be up to the readers?

Medium curator, you’re just a human being. I get it if you don’t care about Medium. I get it if you hate your job. I get it that reading articles about the most ridiculous sex all day might be annoying (or awesome).

I know this story won’t be curated. Nothing about Medium ever is. This is just a one-way message between me and you. I’m here to tell you that I know you exist, you faceless, nameless individual.

I know you’re reading this.

HA!

Got ya.

Get my free 5-day Medium writing course right here. It’ll teach you how to write five posts per week and become a top writer on Medium. :)

That’s for the people actually reading this article. Medium curator, if you want to sign up for my Medium course, you definitely can if you want ;)