Hello New to Medium Clappers, We Need to Have “the Talk”

Some of y’all aren’t understanding the unspoken rule of claps and it shows

Steffany Ritchie
5 min readSep 4, 2024
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-and-woman-clapping-together-8815040/

I just read a hilarious piece in a prestige publication. I was curious why it only has 100 claps so far. When I clicked on the claps I saw why — despite having at least 10 clappers, no one was clapping much at all.

Sigh. Look, I get it, things are ever changing here, new people join all the time. But there used to be a fairly quick hazing that happened here to newbs who did not understand the LAWS OF CLAPPING.

One clap is not ok. One clap is a slap in the face. A smattering of claps, as long as your finger takes to have a fickle flick of the clap button, is almost as egregious.

Oh, no one told you? Well I am telling you now. Claps matter. Why? I have no tangible reason, but they do.

They once were related to the pay out per read, then that went away and the higher the claps meant a piece did better in the algorithm. Lately, supposedly highlights and comments matter more.

Regardless, on Medium, if we read something good we clap.

We clap A LOT ok.

Hang on in there till 20/25 minimum. But really, if you like something, go for broke. You know what I…

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Steffany Ritchie

Hi, I write memoir, humor, pop culture, and humor. American in Scotland. Publisher of "Cancer Sucks, So Let's Talk About it More"