avatarJonathan Greene

Summary

The author returned to Medium after a break, driven by the platform's simplicity and ease of publishing, despite previous ambivalence and a focus on a personal website.

Abstract

The author of the article, Jonathan Greene, describes his return to Medium after having left in a dramatic fashion, deleting his profile with a significant following. He reflects on the reasons for his departure and return, acknowledging that his initial exit was emotionally charged and that he occasionally regretted losing his audience. However, his primary motivation for coming back to Medium is its straightforward writing and publishing process, which has proven to be a productive environment for him in the past. Although he is not interested in the platform's analytics or the potential for a large readership, he recognizes the value of having an audience, which his personal site lacks.

Opinions

  • The author initially left Medium in a self-described melodramatic manner, but later realized the move was unnecessary and occasionally regrettable.
  • He is not swayed by the potential for large numbers of followers or views, and he is wary of becoming overly focused on analytics.
  • The simplicity of Medium's platform, with its minimalist design and ease of use, is the main reason for his return.
  • Despite having a personal website, the author found that he wasn't writing much, and his work wasn't reaching an audience.
  • He acknowledges that building an audience might be more challenging now, but the act of writing and sharing is what matters most to him.

Why I Came Back To Medium

A Work in Progress

Photo by Graeme Worsfold on Unsplash

I thought I shut the door. Sealed it up. Left an avalanche of rocks in front of it so it would be very difficult to open again. But here I am. Using my shoulder to lean into the pain of nudging that door open just enough so I can get inside again. But why? Seriously, I’m asking myself.

I left in a melodramatic down spiral that accomplished nothing. At the time, I needed that. Whatever it was. But were there days where I wondered why I flushed 4.2k followers down the toilet? Sure. Were there other days where I was sure it was the right move at the time? Sure.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. Because I opened the door again and I’m standing here, looking around expectantly, and everything looks pretty much the same. When I say everything, I mean the layout and functionality. Because my promise to myself when I created my new profile was that I would never go on the home page. Because that’s not why I came back.

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t come back because I missed reading all the great stories. I’m sure I will read my favorite writers and my friends again, but the chances of me ever having a couple hundred bookmarked stories to sort through are over. For my own good.

I don’t care about the numbers. Although I’m pretty sure the Stats page will be setting me up on an “I really miss you” drip campaign the second I hit publish on this blasphemous drivel. “Hey, Jonathan. Things have really changed over here on the Stats page. You can go down even more rabbit holes and obsess ad nauseam for as long as you like based on algorithmic relevance.” No thanks. I’m good.

But really, why am I here? Why did I come back to Medium? It’s very simple. Medium coaxed me into being a productive writer with its minimalist design and ease of publishing back in the day. And that’s it. Flip it open. New Story. Title. Subtitle. Unsplash. Words. Publish. Goodnight. It’s that easy.

Since I left to focus on my personal site all I really did was transfer over a truckload of my best Medium articles. The same ones that I disintegrated in the touch of a button one evening. The truth is I haven’t been writing. And when I have, it wasn’t very good. My site is nice, but my mailing list of 25 isn’t waiting by their inbox for that “I just wrote a half-sh*tty story” email.

When I hit publish on my personal site it goes to purgatory. It’s just there. In the middle. In the ether. Sheepishly trying to wave someone on the Internet down with a side-eye and a little bit of leg. Here, there are people. Maybe it will be harder to develop an audience this time around. Maybe the algorithm has clusterf*cked itself into oblivion since I left, which means it’s still completely out of our control. But maybe I will just start writing again. And isn’t that what it’s really about?

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

If you liked this, you might like this as well:

Writing
Blogging
Creativity
Self-awareness
Productivity
Recommended from ReadMedium