Discover the depths of depravity hiding in plain sight

This subject has been tackled before, but time moves on, new sins emerge, so here is an update on the deadly sins to be found on this pernicious platform.

Having studied the sins suggested by readers of previous articles, one of the funniest mentioned, is the highly reprehensible practice of highlighting any smutty content, something I am sure you would never even dream of doing, let alone reading it in the first place!

Here is my take on the updated sins, so read on if you want to avoid the Highway to Medium Hell.

Posting poetry — yes, I know, Mr Pearce ranting about poetry again, naughty me. The thing is, my dislike of poetry says more about me than it does about poetry, exposing my lamentable lack of culture of any type, whether it is verse, ballet, opera or any other nonsense of that type.

Which reminds me of an old joke. To avoid offence I am removing the name of the country that was the original butt of this joke, since I have lost enough readers already, so will just refer to it as “nation X”, for you to substitute your preferred target, though be nice to Greenland and Canada since they may not be around much longer:

“What is the difference between (nation X) and a yoghurt? You get culture in a yoghurt.”

It is not that all poetry is bad, just that some amateur poetry is tragically awful, but people are often too kind to say it, a bit like the crowd seeing the emperor with no clothes, British people served inedible food in a restaurant who are too polite to say anything, or nodding sycophants listening to a president go off on one again.

It was one of my New Year’s resolutions to be kinder about poetry, but like my efforts to exercise, help more with housework, or try really hard to see some conceivable saving grace in certain politicians, it barely lasted the first week of January.

Using AI or plagiarising– I have grouped AI and plagiarism, as I was getting a surfeit of sins and needed to stick to seven, and they both amount to deception in different forms, a sort of BOGOF (buy one get one free) without the customer loyalty points. I see AI as a form of plagiarism anyway, as it is not the user’s own work.

Going ever so slightly off the point as usual, a while ago, a study found that about 47% of articles on Medium have significant AI content, and I have seen some editors of publications here say that they are completely deluged with submissions which are clearly 57 varieties of synthetic semolina slop.

Of course, any AI pictures are meant to be labelled as such on Medium, though this often seems to be forgotten. Just as writers are losing work to AI, artists are similarly impacted, so while AI art can be extraordinary, there are costs involved to creatives (and the environmental cost of running all those hidden servers).

Posting meta content within the paywall — since 1st April (an appropriate date some might say), meta content (ie. articles specifically about Medium) has been banned by executive order from appearing behind the paywall, at least in theory.

To paywall an article about Medium is a technical sin, though I guess it depends on how pedantic God, or his appointed representative on earth, Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine, is feeling on a particular day, whether you get away with this misdemeanour or not. If you get caught, you may get suspended, which some might see as a blessing rather than a punishment given the state of Medium, and cast into publishing purgatory. Go straight to Medium gaol and do not pass go, do not collect $200 (as if!).

Being a Pollyanna — as a confirmed grouch, I find it more than mildly irritating when I see what I think of as a Medium Pollyanna, usually a newbie, who has yet to discover the reality of the dark underbelly and sinister reality of the platform, and become cynical like the rest of us.

These shiny happy people always seem to see the good in everything, usually appear to have overdosed on positivity pills, and think Medium is the best thing since sliced bread, Forest Green Rovers miraculously scoring a goal, or earning 0.03 cents for a heartbreaking article of staggering genius.

What is the point, I ask you, of using Medium, if we can’t moan about the platform? Don’t take away one of my few joys in life, along with excessive coffee consumption, trying to wind up cold callers, annoying other drivers by sticking to the speed limit, or finding new ways to annoy Mrs. Pearce.

Serial tagging — we have probably all fallen victim to this heinous crime. We see a notification that we have been tagged, and all excited, race breathlessly to the relevant article, excitedly scrolling through to see our name in neon lights, only to discover that we are nothing special, but listed along with a hundred or so other poor suckers, including that chap who appears to have a foot fetish, a clone who is just possibly not the real Elon Musk, or the member who is part of the Illuminati and wants to make you unbelievably wealthy with cryptocurrency.

Using clickbait headlines — on a par with the serial tagger, the user of clickbait headlines draws you in with something like:

“How to be Squillionaire and Retire by the Age of Five”,

or

“The One Thing You Must Do Right Now To Earn $10K A Day On Medium Like Me”,

or the ingenious one I saw recently

“People Are Making Big Money On This Platform”,

-which sounded great until I read it, and it turned out “this platform” was surprisingly not Medium would you believe, but a different one entirely!

I do understand the huge challenge of getting readers, and have tried alluring headlines myself, but when you are promised the world, or even more than a dollar an article, it can be frustrating when you wade through an article about as interesting as something about the finer points of birdwatching in Eastern Mongolia, or a beginner’s guide to coding in Kubernetes, only to find that it does not, after all, deliver the promised elixir of life, and you have been sold snake oil.

Leeching — it is perhaps unkind to refer to people as leeches, but I’m having one of those days, and this my article. You know the sort of people you may encounters in the real world rumoured to exist outside of Medium, who suck the joy out of life, and drain the energy from any room they enter, like a Tesla with a flat battery.

Well Medium has its equivalent: the 29-second readers who ruin your read ratio, the strategic highlighters who may extensively highlight almost every sentence of your article for no other reason than to get noticed, stochastic scrollers who sometimes even highlight the title, and the single clappers. You can collect these species of leech like a twitcher collecting birds, though sadly leeches are not rare.

Incidentally, in a rare moment of benevolence, I am willing to give some single clappers special dispensation, provided they say three Hail Marys, at least the ones that don’t realise you can clap more than once, a surprisingly common feature of newbies. This dispensation does not apply to senior Medium staff who clap once and should know better, especially for my articles, for which 50 claps is the bare minimum, as I am sure you know by now.

Do suggest any sins you would add to this list.

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The Seven Deadly Sins Of Medium was originally published in Eco News on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.