An Open Letter To People Who Followed Me On Medium Without Having Clapped For, Highlighted, Or Responded To Any Of My Stories

What the what?

Why?

I mean, I suppose I am in no position to begrudge followers of any kind — there are writers here with thousands upon thousands of followers, while I only recently hit 200 — an arbitrary milestone that kicked off a celebration from which I am only now recovering (I apparently don’t have the tolerance that I did in college for four Bud Lights).

But… why?

Are you a bot? Does Medium have bots? If so, you do a much better job disguising yourselves than over at Twitter, where you can suss them out by the eight digits at the end of their username or the aggressive use of titillating images and videos that leave me more sweatily perplexed than at any time since eighth grade health class.

Maybe you were drawn by my compelling profile picture — me in my Nathan-Fillion-as-Rick-Castle-inspired WRITER t-shirt, sitting at a table behind an orange and a banan— no, it’s not the profile pic.

Sure, there are those who follow purely in the hope the move will be reciprocated, often to pimp their own content. I know a guy on Twitter who follows nearly a million people — I’m pretty sure new users of the platform are somehow followed by this guy before they’ve even decided on a username (I wonder if @SuperMikeCoolDude314159 is available? Let’s see — S-u-p — Hey, man — First! — am I right? I know you’re going to be a great follow, cause you seem like the type who’d get a kick out of my YouTube channel where I unbox and taste test mayonnaises from all over the world! Like and subscribe! Tweet you later!).

But some of my recent followers are only following like 14 other people. So they aren’t marketing themselves. Which would make me feel kind of special, being in such a select club, IF THERE WAS A SHRED OF EVIDENCE THEY HAD READ ANYTHING I’D WRITTEN.

I don’t get it — your lack of interaction means either you’ve read nothing of mine, or you have read something, found it unworthy of a clap, highlight, or response… yet you want to know when there is more? It doesn’t make… wait a minute — are you the type who watches NASCAR for the crashes, and you have determined that I’m gonna be good for several more literary versions of a violent twelve-car wreck in turn two?

That, I can buy.

Are there occasional, secret, follower lotteries that I’ve won? Yes or no, consider this my notice that I am copyrighting the term “follottery.”

C’mon, why? Why me?

The only rational explanation is that these dozen or so people — with no obvious connection to each other — got together to orchestrate this conspiracy with the sole purpose of messing with my head.

Mission accomplished.