Writing on Medium When You’re New to Medium

An outsider’s perspective

A little backstory for you… I found Medium a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve been consumed with it. Before a few weeks ago, I’d never heard of it (I’m uncool), but my husband Marvin Lee Brown was all hey, check this thing out — it’s the future. So I’m very new to this space, I don’t have much of a following, but it seems like an okay place to lurk and maybe stretch my writing muscles. I have to say though, after just a few weeks of reading through some of the posts from people that popped out at me, one thing has become very clear — thar be a storm a brewin’ here.

By some (probably algorithmic) magic, I managed to stumble upon posts from the likes of Jennifer Smith and Henry Wismayer and I started following them, like ya’ do. And through following them, I found other people to follow like alto and Tremaine L. Loadholt and Abby Norman, which is kinda what Medium is all about, right? For brevity’s sake, I’m leaving out a ton of people — there are so many more worthy writers on here that I have found, and I’m sure there’s a ton I haven’t even bumped into yet.

After reading a lot of posts around why people are leaving Medium when I’ve only just got here, I’m curious to know — what’s going on? I’m picking up this us versus them vibe (just do a search of the phrase why I’m leaving medium and you’ll see some of the things I’ve come across as a new user). Is it artists versus sellouts? Is it gimmicky clickbait versus people baring their soul online? These seem to be the most common complaints, but is there more?

I’m no UX expert, but the only problem I have with Medium thus far is searchability and navigation. There seems to be a tendency for really great things to go unnoticed and unloved. Other than that, it seems to be a good place to write, read, and give/receive support to/from others.

And someone please for the love of all that is secular and ridiculous, explain to me what Medium did to Kel Campbell that is so bad she left. It’s like a gott-damn mystery novel that won’t resolve for me no matter how many search operators I use. I’ve seen her stuff on Huff Po, I think, if it’s the same Kel Campbell — she’s a talented writer. As are others who have left or are thinking about leaving. I’d just like to know why.