Medium Lists: Yay or Nay?
I may use them myself but sometimes they seem suspicious as heck
How do you feel when someone adds your story to a list?
Me, perhaps like other vainglorious writers, can’t help but have an initial curiosity — Oh, you are interested in little old moi? How sweet! Let me have a look at your list!
I mean, you could have actually read or clapped for my article, that would have been neat. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. (I myself have a reading list that I dip in and out of, and I confess there are things on there I probably will never read. Unfortunately you can’t edit your reading list I don’t think other than physically unticking each article which just….gah who has time for that?!)
Well look at there, you have a whole lot of lists on your profile, and no articles written. I don’t know why I presume other writers make lists. We all know we are outnumbered by “onlyreaders” here, even if we only get to meet them once in a blue moon.
Hm. I don’t know what my piece has in common with any of that stuff or that title, weird.
Look I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I have been burned before. Had my work copied, scrambled by bots and republished. Trust no one is kind of my m.o. with Medium members with lots of lists and no profile of note.
Lately, I had a piece start getting added to lots of lists. Creepy lists that feel a little Gestapo-y.
Saying the tangerine kool-aid club name out loud in my title summoned the dark forces, so I brought it upon myself perhaps. But still. Why all the creepy lists of people they disagree with? What purpose might such a list serve?
I am glad we can choose to remove ourselves from such lists — oh wait no we can’t. We can REPORT the list, or block the person. Almost as good I guess. It’s pretty clear no one at Medium is paying any attention to lists whatsoever.
I do sort my own work into handy (I hope) lists for people to know what subject/category they are in. All of my lists are pretty self explanatory, unlike the majority of weird lists that strangers add my articles to.
I don’t have much evidence that people ever bother to look at my lists, but they are helpful for me when referencing my writing, which is otherwise a vast list of stories that are buried in the list abyss of three and a half years of writing that Medium rarely serves up to anyone.
Lists are not a dish best served cold I guess.
