Medium Decurated My Viral Article
*Big sigh*
This is a reminder. Medium didn’t do anything wrong here. I didn’t do anything wrong. This is simply a reminder to me and to everyone reading this that platforms have their own agenda and rules and they don’t owe you anything.
OK, full story: two weeks ago I poured my heart and soul into a story I was so passionate about: how I make a full-time living by working very little. I love my life and I fervently believe everyone else who wants to should be able to do the same. I also don’t believe I’m anything special - I really, truly, and honestly believe that anyone can do this. There’s no secret sauce, no magic trick - it took me three years to get to where I am, and a lot of that was extremely hard work. But I’ve done it and so can anyone else.
I wrote it and it took off. My first viral hit since September 2020, over six months ago. Today, it’s my third most popular story -ever- on the platform. It has 74k views and has earned me nearly $2,000 in a week of being online.
I was so proud and happy with my story, it was even trending on Medium.
The vast majority of the responses I was getting were positive:
Some were negative and I understood the sentiment, but that’s to be expected whenever you go viral.
And then about four days in, I got a sudden drop in views. I had 3 days of ~17k, and then overnight it dropped to 1k. Still a LOT, but such a sudden drop made me suspicious.
When I checked it out, I noticed my story had been decurated. How odd, I thought! Perhaps a mistake.
Not so, reader.
I contacted Medium to find out why my story had been decurated and they let me know three things.
I was getting a response just this once, and not to expect any special treatment in the future
That it was a medium meta story, that is a story about medium on medium (which is against curation rules)
And that the title was falling foul of the clickbait rule, in a get-rich-quick sense
For those of you in the wings, let me post Medium’s own rules here and you can make up your own minds if I’m right or wrong:
I was big mad because the story is NOT about Medium, and it is 100% true - it’s a story that delivers on the promise of the headline, explaining how I do what I do. Many people were skeptical, but I know long-time viewers and readers will know it is true because they’ve watched me transition from working very hard and earning very little to what I’ve managed today.
When you get paid through the platform, you play by the platform’s rules. That’s what I’ve been reminded of. And I’ve been powerfully recalled to the fact that I am not any kind of special favorite, that they can interpret the rules however they like. It doesn’t matter if I don’t like their interpretation or even if I think it isn’t true. Part of the deal I’ve made with this particular devil is that I get to access their audience if I play by their rules.
What will this change for me going forward on Medium?
Well, I won’t mention it as Medium. If I reference it, it’ll have to be called “That there royalty-based blog,” or perhaps “that blog between small and large.” In all seriousness, I’ll be trying to steer even more clear of it than I already do.
And I’ll try to feel less sure of my future here. Those old names, like Kris Gage and Brianna Wiest - they didn’t become worse writers. They simply moved on. Time moves for all of us.
Was it worth it?
If I'd known I’d be decurated, of course I’d still write the story. I’m $2,000 up, I got a ton of positive comments, and loads of people signed up to my mailing list (about 1000!) which was really exciting.
And I got a nice, painless reminder that these platforms don’t owe me anything, I’m not special, and the vital thing to remember is to begin building my own platofmr. My story helped me do that by gaining 1,000 new email subscribers. If you’re one of them, thank you and welcome!
What are my conspiracy theories?
Well, there’s always the chance that someone saw I was nabbing a disproportionate number of views and wanted to cut me down to size. That’s happened with other authors - they write something, it goes viral, then Medium decides retroactively that it’s not what their audience actually wants (even though by virtue of it going virla, it IS literally what their audience wants)
