Humor
A Letter From A Disgruntled New Subscriber To Medium
I’ve been misled, deceived, bamboozled, hoodwinked!
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Dear Editors (or if you’ve all been fired, remaining support staff. Or, barring that, whoever runs the coffee shop in the lobby):
I recently subscribed to your website as a direct result of something called the Medium Writers (Writer’s? Writers’?) Challenge.
The title of your esteemed contest should perhaps have been my first clue that all was not kosher in Mudville.
Although meant to be a “challenge” for writers, the top winning entries have proven to be a bit of a challenge for the reader, as well. Nonetheless, ignoring the pleas of my children for sustenance, I set aside an entire day during which I read the four champions, pausing only for those bodily functions which require one’s undivided attention.
The winning essays led me to believe that Medium was in fact similar to, say, The Atlantic, or The New Republic, but priced for the masses rather than the bobo elite presently holding sway over American culture.
I anticipated a compendium of long, thoughtfully written and peer-reviewed articles, as well as skillful (albeit overripe) fiction pieces, rather than what it actually is — a grab bag of 500-word ramblings in sometimes quasi-English that one might (from sheer desperation) find interesting after scrolling for anywhere from five to 20 minutes until a headline appears that isn’t clickbait or a promise that your life will drastically improve if you do these three things.
Of course, I read the article to find out what those three things are—how could I not? But it left me feeling unclean. Sullied. Cheapened. Used.
There is much on your platform regarding the monetization of newsletters and even more about pythons.
I must say, I do not like reptiles and have no interest in learning more about them. As for newsletters, I find it difficult to believe that anyone would pay to receive my Aunt Evgenia’s annual Christmas missive updating one and all…
