Here’s What’s Trending on Medium This Week: August 6–12
Your window into the stories resonating with readers right now
Every day, thousands of writers turn to Medium to share their perspectives — from personal experiences to presidential statements to product reviews. Here, anyone with an idea or story to share can potentially reach millions of readers, changing how we understand the world and each other.
To give you a sense of the stories having that kind of impact, here’s a list of what’s trending on Medium right now. This week: Microsoft makes its emoji open-source; the former head of talk audio at Spotify contextualizes Instagram’s recent changes; and a war analyst breaks down what’s happening in Ukraine. Curious what else readers are spending time with? Browse the “trending” tab on any tag page (for example, https://medium.com/tag/life-lessons).
1. “Designing in the Open (Source)” by Microsoft Design
Starting today, you can open source most of our emoji library on in Figma and on Github 🥳. There are some exceptions (the fine print is below), but there’s a veritable smorgasbord of emoji for you to go build with — and build on.
2. “The End of Social Media and the Rise of Recommendation Media” by Michael Mignano
Last week, Meta announced that the Facebook newsfeed would be shifting towards an algorithmic, recommendation-based model of content distribution. This announcement marked the most recent example of a major platform to formally make this shift, while other major platforms, including Meta’s Instagram, have been headed in this direction for a while. Given Facebook’s relevance as the world’s largest social network, this change signals the end of social media as we’ve known it for the past decade and a half.
3. “Max Bidding” by Arthur Hayes
Every human is born into the universe short of shelter. The lucky ones receive a dwelling from their parents, but most of us must find a way to buy or rent shelter once we enter adulthood. Financing the purchase of a house or apartment is one of the largest activities of any financial institution. America is no different.
4. “Justice Overruled” by Sheryl Ono
Like so many other women who had been in abusive relationships, I spent all of May with AirPods in my ears, glued to the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial. Whichever side we started out believing, those of us who watched the whole thing wound up overwhelmingly convinced that Depp was telling the truth. I felt vindicated by his win; there was relief in seeing any abuser exposed and punished for lying about it. And then my most trusted news organizations denied what I had witnessed…
5. “Farewell, Wally Cleaver” by Mark Tulin
Everyone liked you, Wally, and it was easy to see why. You were a good listener and never monopolized a conversation. You were either funny or right to the point, and often both — unlike your best friend, Eddie Haskell, who lied and manipulated others to get out of jams. Instead, you took responsibility and never blamed other people for your mistakes.
6. “Ukraine War, Early August 2022, Part 1” by Tom Cooper
At the top in relations between Kyiv and Moscow, and essentially: nothing changed at all. The Fool in Kremlin is still insisting on a Ukrainian capitulation, nothing less. Indeed, there’s a growing number of rumours about preparation of ‘referendums’ in Kherson and occupied parts of Zaporizhzhya and Donbass — for these to join the Russian Federation. Ukrainians see no reason why should they capitulate, and Zelensky stressed — several times — that in the case of any kind of referendums, there are going to be no negotiations at all any more.
7. “On Cancer” by John Yarchoan
Tomorrow marks my final scheduled chemotherapy treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital. You see, back in April, I joined the roughly 1 in 2 people worldwide who will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life. My life since that diagnosis has revolved around PET scans, oncology appointments, and these lovely chemo infusions. As you might imagine, I’ve had plenty of time this summer to reflect on what it means to get a rare cancer as a 31-year-old. Here are a few musings on life, career, and how this experience has changed me…
8. “Bottom’s Up?” by Scott Galloway
A difficult concept to grasp is that contradictory things can exist concurrently. This is partly what makes markets so challenging: A company reports significant revenue growth but the stock declines, as price is a function of millions of signals creating a set of expectations that are reflected in the stock leading up to earnings. It’s impossible for the human brain to process all of them. So we cling to binaries — up/down, good/bad — wherever possible. But binaries are black and white, and markets are in color.
9. “I Spent $15 in DALL·E 2 Credits Creating This AI Image, and Here’s What I Learned” by Joy Zhang
You’ve probably seen various cherry-picked images online showing what DALL·E 2 is capable of (provided the right creative prompt). In this article, I share a candid walkthrough of what it takes to create a usable image from scratch for the subject matter: “a llama playing basketball”. You might find it useful if you’re thinking of trying out DALL·E 2 yourself, or you’re just interested in understanding what it’s capable of.
10. “Every Type of Zoom Call Participant, Illustrated by Dogs” by Jack Shepherd
Technically, working from home means that Tinkerbell can play fetch the whole way through the monthly staff meeting, but that doesn’t mean it’s a great idea!
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