Who You Follow Now Matters More: Nipples!

Some Medium tweaks are welcome

Sometimes I think if I just put the word “nipples” in my headline I’ll get all the views and reads I ever wanted on Medium. Other times I know this is true. Still, I can’t bring myself to add “nipples” or “breasts” or “sex” to every headline. Talk about self defeating behavior!

But seriously, there are many things I love about the Medium platform:

•As a writer, I can reach readers I don’t already know •The simple and good-looking format •The ease in starting a publication (like Fourth Wave!) •Pressing that “Publish” button as soon as I’m finished with a piece •Finding good writers I want to follow •The fact that it’s international* •Learning new things and perspectives** •The opportunity to make money on my writing. That should have gone first!

At the same time, there are some things I don’t like about Medium.

Bring back the claps as a metric for compensation

One of them is that they stopped using claps as a metric when determining compensation. When I brought this up with the small group of Medium writers I meet with, I liked what Evelyn Jean Pine had to say: When they used claps, I had some control over which stories got a piece of my $5 monthly membership. Now that they use “reads,” I don’t.

Let’s face it, sometimes we read stories we don’t admire (the nipple factor). And the fact that the specific language for what metric is used in the equation is reading time degrades it even further. Sometimes you read something hilarious or super insightful that’s very short. Does that mean it should get less compensation than a very long story you slogged through that didn’t offer much of value?

Here’s a short piece I read yesterday that made me laugh multiple times. I clapped 50 times for it, but under the new(ish) equation, the writer will get maybe 1 cent for my read.

Then I read this story this morning that said claps had gone missing on the writer’s account in the UK. She liked the change, and said it put the focus on value rather than on social approval, comparing claps to the pernicious “like” button on Facebook. I see the similarity — and I’ve read that the FB “like” button is the root of all evil on social media— but I disagree.

Claps are useful in multiple ways

I want the claps back as part of the equation for compensation for the reasons I stated above. If I like a story, I want to be able to grant it a buck, not a penny.

I also use claps to find stories to read and writers to follow. If I like a piece, I’ll look at other pieces that writer has clapped for. This is a pretty good method for finding “my people,” much better than the Medium algorithm, which thinks I’m obsessed with nipples. In fact, it’s how I found the humorous piece above.

I also look back at my own claps to remember which stories I read recently that I admired. If you forget the title or the author’s name, it’s impossible to find stories you’ve read via the search function, which brings up only wildly popular (top ten) stories. So claps serve an essential function on multiple levels. Please don’t take them away, Ev Williams! Instead, restore their power to confer cash.

The compensation equation should reward more writers

Another reason I want claps restored to their former glory is I made more money when that system was used.

When I started on Medium two years ago, I had a couple of good months when I made about $100, followed by months that I made closer to $50, so I assumed that was my baseline, and I would build from there. That felt acceptable. But after the compensation equation changed, I started making only about $10 a month. This is very discouraging! I’m a professional-grade writer (former columnist in a small string of newspapers) who publishes about once a week and often gets curated. $10 just doesn’t feel like enough.

In the latest newsletter for Medium writers, we heard that only six percent of writers on Medium earned more than $100 in August. At the same time, we learned that one writer earned around $50,000 and one story earned around $10,000. Those figures are so disparate “they make the whole thing sound like some kind of lottery system or Ponzi scheme,” my writer friend Alan Tabor said.

This sounds like compensation in music post streaming…where a lot of wonderful music receives almost no monetary reward and a few pop stars make billions. Does Medium want to support the stars or increase the level of public dialog and enable many (sometimes niche) voices?

He makes a good point. Think about it. Ninety-four percent of contributors make less than $100 a month? That’s a shame.

And it leads to an obvious question: did more writers — like me — make more than $100 a month under the old compensation equation? If so, change it back. If not, come up with a new equation. Because if Medium is only going to compensate the stars, how is it any different than other news aggregators?

Ev Williams seems like his heart is in the right place. The stated goal of the platform is “to make Medium the best place possible for useful insights and those who think about them — to deepen understanding of the world and help worthwhile ideas grow, evolve, and take hold.”

The best way to do that is to support a broad array of voices, not just a few big hitters. I hope that will be the next tweak that Medium takes on.

So how important are the people I follow?

Very important!

When I read in this story that the people I follow will start showing up more often in my news feed, I was VERY glad to hear it, while at the same time a bit chagrined that that hadn’t been the process all along.

Because currently, finding something I want to read on Medium is daunting. My front page, as I’ve mentioned, is overrun with nipples, which at some point has got me questioning my identity. Who does the algorithm think I am? And just because I read one story on incest, the not-very-understanding algorithm thinks I want to read every story on incest ever written. I don’t!

Also, it’s a question of agency. I want the power to choose the types of stories I read, just as I want the power to reward the writers I admire with my claps. I don’t want some patronizing algorithm telling me what to read. It’s insulting. It’s also unhealthy!

Think of it like a diet. Say one day you pig out and eat nothing but potato chips and ice cream. That’s fine. No judgment. But what if that meant that every morning thereafter you’d find potato chips and ice cream jam-packing your kitchen to the point that you couldn’t find a single orange or apple? That’s not good!

It also creates the “hive mind”root-of-all-evil-FB-like-button environment wherein you only see things on your feed similar to things you’ve already read, driving you deeper and deeper into a smaller and smaller circle of closed-minded thought.

Having the algorithm select new stories to feed me based on past stories I’ve read feels a little bit like being stalked. It also feels a little like being manipulated. And a little condescending, like I don’t have enough sense to decide for myself which writers I want to read.

Following someone means something

When I first started on Medium, if someone followed me, I followed them back. But eventually I decided I would only follow people whose work I actually wanted to read, since finding pieces that I admired was becoming so difficult. So finally, now, that choice is going to pay off, and following someone will mean something. It will mean you get to see more of their work.

Here’s how I found the last three people I followed

The first one, I can thank to the algorithm. This story was on my front page. Because I’m a feminist and edit a feminist publication, I’m always on the lookout for stories about social conditions and mores that impact women. Writer Ayesha K. Faines had the combination of intellect, writing style, and insight I hunger for, so I followed her.

Because Ayesha’s story raised some interesting questions, I read all the comments, and that’s where I found the next person I followed, Nini Mappo, who talked about her experiences growing up in a polygamous society in Kenya.

*This is the kind of international connection that I find so inspiring and so valuable that I mentioned it in my list of things I love about Medium at the start of this story.

I wanted to hear more from Nini, so I went to her profile which is where I found this moving story about her dad which spoke directly to a born feminist like me. After reading it, I followed her next.

The third writer I found by searching for the term “white feminism.” I’d read somewhere else on the platform that white feminism underpinned white supremacy, which of course disturbed me, since I’m a white feminist who is absolutely against white supremacy.

But reading and writing here on Medium, and editing the feminist publication Fourth Wave, has taught me a lot about feminist history, including the fact that white suffragettes treated Black suffragettes badly and history books practically erased them completely. So I wanted to learn more. That led to this story

which explained that white feminism does not necessarily refer to people like me. Author Kitanya Harrison defined the term like this:

This isn’t a reference to feminists who happen to be White, but to White women who seek to infiltrate the unjust systems of power controlled by White men instead of disassembling them. The chief danger of White Feminism is that it offers no meaningful critique of oppressive systems besides there not being enough White women at the helm of them. The Silicon Valley system that lauds the hoarding of wealth, denigrates the concept of society in favor of libertarian hunger games, and elevates people like the ones Holmes presented herself to be is something feminism should be looking to deconstruct and dismantle not extol.

I was impressed with her scholarship and erudition, and also intrigued by the hand-drawn avatar she chose for her profile and the at-first-incomprehensible phrase she used there: *squinting in Nanny of the Maroons*

So I looked that phrase up, and learned that Nanny of the Maroons was a female hero in Jamaica, so revered that she appears on the $500 bill. Nanny’s likeness is the one the Kitanya uses on her profile.

**This is an example of learning new things and new perspectives that I appreciate so much that I included it in my list of things I love about Medium at the top of this story.

So after gaining all that new knowledge and a new perspective, of course I had to follow that writer, too.

It’s good Medium is still striving to reach its potential

I’m glad Medium is making this change to become more “relational,” helping people on the platform to build stronger relationships with their readers and with writers they admire. I hope more changes will come to make it more democratic. It seems like the platform has a lot of unrealized potential. Emotionally, I feel like I’m accessing a real opportunity here, but realistically, I’m not sure that’s true — yet.

For more of the good stuff, follow Fourth Wave, where we’re changing the world for the better, one story at a time. Got one of your own? Submit to the Wave!

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