You’ve Clapped For My Story Without Reading It
Does That “Count?”
I belong to four fabulous Facebook groups for Medium writers where daily threads are provided on which writers can post links to current work.
(Check them out: Medium Mastery. Medium Magic. Medium Partner Program Friends. Medium Dreamers.)
The assumption is that we’ll not only post our own stuff on the daily thread, but we’ll also read and clap for as many of the other posts on the thread as possible.
It’s a great way to discover the Medium writers whose work I want to read every day. It’s also a great way for them to discover me.
But it does raise a question. A question which I’ve been unable to find an answer for by asking my fellow Medium scribes. So I’m asking it here.
Yesterday, on one of those Facebook pages, a writer announced that she had clapped for every single one of the 140 posts in that day’s thread.
I’ll take her word that she clapped for all 140. (She definitely clapped for mine.)
But did actually she read all of them?
Assuming an average length of 3 minutes per post, that’s 7 hours of reading stories on every topic from dogs to bitcoin.
Or did she just open up each story long enough to applaud it, then zip onto the next post on the thread? (After which, presumably, she could sit back and wait for the applause for her own Medium masterpiece to roll in from readers who actually read it?)
We all know that there is a Mysterious Magical Medium Algorithm that pays us each month, based upon a Secret List of Criteria that, we’re told by our Medium Masters, includes Reader Involvement.
If a reader claps for a post without reading a word of it — does that “count?” Is that Reader Involvement?
(It’s definitely bullshit. But that’s not what I need to know.)
Medium can tell whether you’ve actually read my story. If you don’t read it, but you do clap for it, does Medium “care?”
Obviously the answer to that question is no. Medium doesn’t “care.” Medium is a soulless algorithm. (Either that or its a dude in a basement with a bunch of Corgis:
Does my question matter? Not a lot. There are plenty of more important questions that need to be answered. But I still want to know the answer to this one. (Why? Because I hate to be played.) So I’m throwing it out here.
Medium Overlords! Editors! Curators! Random Medium-Know-It-Alls! Scholars of the Ineffable Ways of This Beloved But Maddening Platform! Please be so kind as to tell us whether or not claps by non-readers fatten my monthly Medium paycheck.
You can post your response right here in the Comments Section. (And if you’re just another Medium Writing Schlub like me and you don’t know the answer but would like to speculate? There’s plenty of room in the Comments Section for that too.)
Together, we’ll get to the bottom of this! (Actually, we probably won’t. We’ll continue to have no idea. But the experts say to always end Medium posts on a positive note.)
Writing Coach and editor-for-hire Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)