On the Fence with Medium
How is it affecting writers like me?
I started freewriting with the intention of getting over my fear of the written word. It is more true now than ever before. I was fearless when I was younger.
Writing saved my sanity and burgeoning brain thoughts. It was the only way to express my ideas and feelings in a family that was not vocal. When I was younger, the paper diary and letter writing were my hobbies. I am only happy that the internet was not born yet. These activities seem so impossible now especially with the advent of e-mail. I was ecstatic then. How one can transmit so quickly and cheaply. I did not have to wait for weeks to get a response! I mimicked my letter writing length into long email prose.
Too bad that my sojourn in China destroyed my Hotmail archive. MS and Yahoo! decided that my accounts were subjected to numerous hackings there that they essentially locked me out of my accounts until I had to be in the Western hemisphere to finally unlock it. Sadly, Hotmail wiped my account clean. (Thanks, but no thanks). Yahoo! happily kept everything. (Thanks, but no thanks too).
Since the advent of Gmail sometime in late 2005 when the beta version advertised unlimited space and snotty by-invite only, my Gmail came to be my work email. Creative writing literally dried up. Email is just another office memo and pretty soon, email letter writing for pleasure has disappeared from my life.
My friend who generously gave me a precious Gmail invite told me about this new platform called Medium. He knew I wanted to write. I resisted WordPress because it was really…FUGLY. Medium represented clarity of thought and simplicity that resonated with how I wanted full-on non-distracted creative writing. Until it didn’t.
I was, of course, an outlier. I used Medium as a blogging tool for creative expression. Period. I was not a journalist struggling to earn a living in a dying industry. I was not formally a writer in any traditional publication platforms. I was not their profitable target market or demographic. Although I am/was an academic, I still feel I am not a writer, unless I write more and more and stop hiding behind veils of fear. Medium was that until…
The Paywall. The paywall hit me with tremendous disappointment, frustration, and disgust. I get it that writers need to be paid (this is even being questioned) maybe even Medium needs money for its servers, that said, once you join some form of collective or “publication” within the Medium platform, you are slapped with DO NOT ENTER. The thing is, a writer’s status, influence, and credibility rely on such memberships or badges. Even myself. I was flattered when one of my articles was picked up. If that extra tag in your article i.e. UX Collective is members-only, no one can read it even if you intended it to be read more broadly. It is a vicious paywall-status-reputation thing that mimics academic metrics.
The Work. When writing becomes a work identity, there’s a performative veil that happens and sucks the life juices out of you. When your writing becomes a professional identity, fear of judgment creeps in. Political correctness. Personal analysis. All become subjected to some kind of professional backlash. The worse kind is in your head.
Why can’t I leave Medium? Frankly, everyone’s there. I’ve tried. The design community is there. People in industry. It has infiltrated Western Europe and if you don’t have an account you are missing something. It is almost like Facebook now. You want to leave but can’t leave because your family is there. I hope that Medium merely becomes my “professional” face and I can leave my professional self there and get down to myself here.
Why am I here? I accidentally heard about substack from David Sacks from the All-In Podcast mentioning a substack. What is a substack? A community. This is what I am here for. I want a reading and learning community I hanker for and lost (but never existed for me inside of it anyway). I don’t know about newsletters and gaining followers. But I know you, dear reader, who bothered to reach the end of my spiel, who hanker for a like-minded person who happened to have written what you also feel. It has saved me countless times and I see you.
If you are like me looking for alternatives, here’s a great site for resources. You hope that Substack remains fair and maybe someday open their site outside of Stripe (seriously there are other better payment providers out there) and the 10% toll fee barrier.