This story was originally published on 5/28/14 on Medium’s internal system “Hatch.” It’s like a Medium for Medium. We are publishing some of our posts from there in our collection Inside. You can read Ev’s story on Hatching Inside Medium to find out more.

Sleep has been elusive lately. I am not exactly sure why, but I frequently find myself awake in the middle of the night. I still get up early, and I’m not really tired during the day, although occasionally the Medium nap pod looks nice. I guess I’ve tapped into some strange energy reserve that had previously lain dormant inside me.

This new sleep pattern has given rise to my latest obsession: Medium.com/latest. Don’t look for it: it’s for staff only. It’s the live feed of stories as they’re posted to Medium.

While Nick was gone, scheduling tweets for the @Medium account slid over to Luke and me. Since we try to tweet every two or three hours, there is a never-ending need to find good material, to feed the beast. After you exhaust /trending, Pete’s DB, and Kate’s recommends, you gotta get different. And that’s /latest.

I love it. It’s like being in the delivery room, where a Medium story first emerges into the world, taking its tentative initial breath.

Daytime is exciting enough, but the nighttime…well, it can be the right time. Although some nights are slow, sometimes magic strikes, and I wear out command-r.

That’s when you get all the non-American stories, so you can dive into Turkish politics and Bavarian beer making. Or you run into some good old-fashioned U.S. insomniacs, letting their sleep-deprived brains spill out all over the keyboard. The freaks come out at night. I love these posts, the ones that slowly crawl down the /latest page, never getting any view love before disappearing deep into Medium.

And the spam. For that I like to put on my dark hooded cape, grab my scythe, and rain death (and flags) on spammers.

1:30 a.m. PST? Let’s see what’s happening tonight!

Alright, who’s up first?

I’m down with bridesmaids dresses. Although the first thing I see is the author name “PressRelease,” which sets off my Spamdar a bit. Plus the crap translation. Time to dig in.

Lotta links in the story for something called www.fannybrides.com, so I’m definitely getting ready to hit the blacklist button. But wait…let’s look at this paragraph.

Now, there’s some good advice in there. Despite the broken English, it’s true a bridesmaid shouldn’t have wild head accessories, because a goofy hat will kill the cultivated look. And yes, bridesmaids best not to rub the lipstick, or wear jewelry that upstages the bride. And of course a white scarf always carries that cool, classic, Audrey Hepburn look.

I’m kinda disappointed that they write that they are going to talk about something called “Fanny Bidets,” but then fail to actually cover it. I’m nervous what that google search will bring back, so I let it go.

Now, this is where I get into my ethical dilemma. This person just gave some solid advice. Yes, they linked to their cheap wedding dress (their words not mine) website four times in the story, so that pushes them well into spam. But they did drop legit knowledge.

Is it that much different than the Medium story at the top of the charts where some startup founder is crowing about how “at Aviato, we are changing the fundamental way things are done,” or “at Aviato, we will change the world with whatever we’re doing,” and then goes on to link to his or her website multiple times?

Don’t get me wrong. Realistically, I know the difference. But democratically, at 2:00 am, it’s a blurred line. Straight up Robin Thicke.

So I flag it as spam for clearer heads in the morning, and move back to latest page.

Fair enough.

My User Happiness kicks in, and I leave him a note. If this site made no sense before, I’m going to blow his mind with some late-night preemptive, proactive service.

Alright, this one is super-fresh.

It’s a high-school kid, talking about how his favorite band, that he’s never seen play live, is getting back together for a reunion show, and his parents are letting him make the 11 hour drive from NY to Indianapolis as a graduation present. So cool. Touches my heart.

Here’s the band. Solid looking crew, good press shot. You can basically tell what kind of music they are from their look, so it is highly effective.

Just for a comparison, here’s my band’s first press shot from high school. What a mess.

It’s tough because I want to rec this kid, and let him know some random internet dude digs his whole thing, but then everyone who follows me is going to get it in their reading lists and be like “What the hell are you doing Greg? It’s 2 in the morning!”

Aaaaah…fuck it. Rec’d.

It’s clobberin’ time!

I don’t know what’s going on with the moving industry in India, but there’s a couple dozen of these a night, and those are just the ones I see. It must be either booming or flailing. They pop back up as fast as I can knock ‘em down.

I hearby volunteer for an official Medium fact-finding and goodwill mission to India. I can sit down with this “Komaletrade” character over some Kingfishers and samosas, and negotiate removing him from the spam list if he can craft a better Medium story about this emerging situation.

Ok, I like this one. Cute little story about when you have the same name as someone at the coffee shop, and the anxiety around when the drink is ready, and they call your name but it’s not your drink. Not a tweet, but good for an “I like this!” note. Let’s see who wrote it…

“Nocturnal emmisary!” And emissary is spelled wrong? You just got yourself a new follower, my friend.

Ugh, more spam!

Or is it? Because the title is actually a question, I’m thinking this might be some next-level, soul-searching story of a car wrecker that failed this dude.

Oh, no. They say call our 0800 number. It’s spam.

But wait.

There’s no link or full phone number anywhere in the post. What the what?

Oh, you sneak. You put it as Further Reading. Trying to get us on a classic technicality, are you?

This confuses my late-night brain. Flagged for mañana.

Real Post Alert!

It looks like this dude is posting previously written stories of his, and this one is a super-fresh description of a San Francisco building. Might fit into Marcin and Sarah’s whole gig. Rec’d, bookmarked, might even be tweet-worthy. But nothing rash in the middle of the night. Getting bleary.

Wait, what’s this? Something awesome? Did I find a gem? A possible tweeter?

Cool title that is a click-bait list: check.

Awesome retro pictures: check.

Attribution to the original source, which is an interesting science collective with no Medium presence but might be trying to get it on: check.

Oh damn.
Author who wrote source blog: check.

Potential tweeter.

I’m telling you, Medium After Dark gets wild.