How I Lost 100,000 Followers in One Year, and It Made Me a Better Writer

Screw the rules.

Photo by Chris J. Davis on Unsplash

Most of you probably know that I used to write on a platform called Medium. You know what kind of articles always performed really well there, but let's refresh our memories. Every week, some guy used to post an article about Elon Musk's formula for learning, and some of them did extremely well. One post went viral and made the author thousands of dollars. He later confessed that his article was riddled with typos. A reader even pointed out some of them, but he was worried fixing them would reset the algorithm. So he just left them in there, and the article continued soaring into the stratosphere.

That would be a certain kind of privilege.

One of the most viral pieces on there was a short little post by a guy talking about how hard it was to be incredibly smart.

Everyone, get out your fiddle.

That platform always preferred a particular kind of article, and none of them could ever offer a genuine critique or a nuanced stance on the problems we faced. A lot of these articles boiled down to a dude or a self-help barbie pontificating on what it meant to be smart, resilient, or [insert adjective]. That venue encouraged and rewarded the loudest voices.

As an academic, I found myself having to write louder and louder to be taken seriously. I followed the lead of the clickbaiters who cranked out listicles on how to become a millionaire, why Keanu Reeves was so awesome, or why it was crucial to wake up at 5 am every morning, except I applied their formula to progressive politics, public health, and the climate crisis. I wrote in every genre, including satire, then I finally just made my own.

I read the self-help articles over and over. I'm an English teacher with training in language theory and linguistics. I know how to analyze writing for patterns and make them my own. That's what I did.

For a little while, that approach worked.

I had a readership of 100,000.

For me, it was a lot.

Sometimes, I had to turn down the nuance to make a point that reached through to my audience or pleased the algorithms. Sometimes I had to use an image that caught everyone's attention, exactly the way the self-help writers did. In fact, some of these writers explicitly advised their peers to use photos of attractive women to get more views. It was always okay when they did it.

It made a lot of people very angry when I did it.

Problems started.

When I did what the self-help writers did, but with progressive politics in mind, that got me labeled as a clickbait artist and a doomer, and eventually bullied off the site. Their staff often sat back and watched as writer after writer threw my name in their hate pieces and told everyone what a witch I was.

This crew didn't just say mean things. They turned many of my readers against me. They also turned the algorithms against me. Editors stripped curation from my posts, often without any explanation. They buried my content. Then they adjusted their pay scales to deflate my earnings. By the end, there was no practical or even idealistic reason to publish there anymore. I wasn't reaching anyone, not even the 100,000 followers I had.

So I left.

Someone will probably tell you it didn't happen like that, and I have no hard evidence to prove it. But from my perspective, this is exactly what happened. In the end, it was a good thing. I'll explain why.

I'm thinking about that platform now because the world is rallying around a late night talkshow host who just got canned for saying the wrong thing. I want to be sympathetic, because that happened to me. I know what it feels like. But I didn't have tens of millions of fans standing behind me.

When I arrived here, I had a few hundred.

I had to start over.

This is the optimistic turning point in the essay, the part where I tell you it's good to start over. You get a chance to prove to yourself and everyone else that you weren't just manipulating algorithms and mooching off discontent. You get to prove you're actually a good writer, and you have something to say that other people want to hear, at least most of the time.

My writing got better.

It was liberated from algorithms. I wasn't writing for gatekeepers and curators anymore. I was writing for readers. I didn't have to worry about using big words. I didn't have to worry about walking that fine line between compelling content and clickbait. I didn't have to worry about my tone.

I could think about a real audience again.

It's still not easy.

It's hard.

I'm thinking about all the journalists and content creators struggling right now, with this economic hellscape, but also the closing echo chambers, the platform turf wars, and the toxic discourse that punishes anyone who dares to say something that goes against the dogma on either side of politics.

It's hard to be a writer these days. Despite busting my butt, I go through droughts. I go through periods where I lose subscribers. Every month, I still wonder if I'll be able to pay all of my bills.

I'm there now.

Especially when you're a woman, you put up with a lot. You put up with so much more than trolls. You put up with death threats. You put up with emails calling you ugly and stupid. You put up with podcasts and YouTube videos devoted entirely to explaining what an idiot slut you are. There have been so many of those over the last six years, I've lost count.

You put up with a lot of your own readers turning on you the minute you say something they disagree with, because they have a hunch about something. You put up with your own supporters correcting and lecturing you in the comments, then yanking their subscriptions because you're "too contrarian" with them. You put up with people getting angry because you publish too much, or not enough, or you don't write about the issues they want to talk about every single day. You put up with people who drop you despite all your research, all your work, and all the times you saved their lives with information.

There's no end to the things you can do wrong.

We're still here.

Writers like me will keep writing, because there's a voice in our heads that won't shut up. We have to write so we can hear ourselves think. Otherwise, the voice just keeps going until it's all we can hear.

There's so many "rules" these days. You're supposed to publish at a certain time of day, a certain number of days per week. You're supposed to talk about this topic, but not that topic. You're supposed to use this tone, but not that tone. You're supposed to be nice, kind, and polite to every person who thinks they own you. I've been trying to follow these rules, but you know what?

To hell with these rules.

The rules aren't what got me 100,000 readers. It was breaking the rules and flouting expectations that did. It was caring about the quality of my work and using the rules to my advantage, not obeying them like a tradwife. It was publishing when I had something to say, not on a schedule. It was caring about my readers, even if I didn't always come off as "polite."

I'm not writing for fairweather fans.

I’m writing for you.

In this moment, when everything looks so dark for the arts, for literature, for science, for freedom of thought and expression, that's what I remember.

Screw the rules.

Sure, use them.

Never obey.