Why I’m Not Clapping for Your Latest Medium Masterpiece

I Don’t Care How Good It Is

Claps are the currency of Medium and it’s not always clear how best to use them.

Most people have a system, from the Single Clappers who clap just once, for everything, always, no matter what, to those people who apparently clap 50 times for everything they read, from the lamest limerick to the most insightful essay.

Some folks read and comment and highlight, but skimp on the applause. Other folks clap for crap. I’ll read a little poem that is, in my estimation, a total turd, and see that it has somehow managed to earn a thousand claps.

This is a mystery to me.

As long as your clap-dispensing system makes sense to you, and you’re taking the trouble to interact with my work, I’m fine. Sure, it’s feels a little weird that, an hour after I’ve posted it, my latest humor piece has received 2 claps, 23 claps, 14 claps, 37 claps, 50 claps and 43 claps.

What does this mean?

Who knows?

I suppose I’ll find out when I get paid at the end of the month.

As for me? I try to be a generous clapper.

If I love your work, I will clap enthusiastically. If I don’t love your work? Well if I’ve managed to read to the end, I’ll give it a few claps, as if to say: “Hurrah! You wrote a thing! Good for you! Keep writing! Maybe the next thing will be better!”

Why don’t I punish bad writing by withholding claps? Because I’m an editor. I know that any writer can improve, but only if they keep writing. If, with a couple of claps, I can encourage a writer to persevere, I will.

That being said, there are two kinds of Medium writers I absolutely refuse to give a single clap to:

Medium Moochers

These are the writers who post on Medium without being paying members. They’re just here to gain access to our precious eyeballs and lucrative claps. When I clap for them, it puts money in their pockets. But when they clap for me? Bubkas. (Which is a Yiddish term that translates to: zilch from you in my monthly payout.)

And don’t tell me you can’t afford $5 a month. Maybe that was true at first. But if you’ve gained followers and applause here? Pay up, tightwad! Till then, if you don’t have that little green halo around your portrait that tells me you’re a paying member? I don’t care how good a writer you are. I’m not clapping.

Clap Grabbers

After I’d been on Medium for a while, I noticed that a certain writer whose work I’d often applauded had never once clapped for any of my essays. Okay, so he didn’t like my work. Fair enough. But?

I soon realized that he never claps for any of the writers who regularly clap for his work. He writes. A lot. He accepts our applause for his work. (And it’s a lot of applause.) But when it comes to our work?

He doesn’t give a clap.

I’ve since noticed that there are several such Clap Grabbers, who are far too busy churning out Medium Masterpieces to waste their valuable time reading the work of others.

It’s a policy that seems to work for them. They’re getting lots of claps.

But not from me.

How about you? Is there a kind of writer whose work you refuse to applaud for your own excellent reasons? Feel free to call them out in a Comment.

(If you liked this essay by Roz Warren, you’ll probably like this one too.)