Medium Needs a Dedicated Humor Section/Page/Thing
Medium Humor Writers, Let’s Make It Happen
So, I just woke up at 4 AM thinking this same thing and I remembered this article by Ellie Guzman. It took some digging to find it, but I’m back. It seems like the best place to start, so here’s a simple question:
Why don’t we (Medium’s humor writers) make this happen?
Medium’s humor writers: Let’s make this happen!
At the risk of this turning into an embarrassing, overly optimistic, later-regrettable, Jerry Maguire-esque mission statement…
If we, the writers who put humor on Medium, want a dedicated humor page/section/thing on Medium bad enough, there will be a dedicated humor page/section/thing on Medium. But we have to make it happen. It won’t happen on its own.
We’re not asking for much are we?
But what are we asking for?
1. A Page
For starters, how about *not* having https://medium.com/humor be a 404 Error?! I mean, https://medium.com/topic/humor is OK, but is the word “topic” essential? If that’s how it is, can we get a redirect from medium.com/humor? Just in case someone wants to type it in on a guess? Seems like a good, simple first step.
So let’s start with that.
2. A Section
Second, Your Friends @ Medium as everyone has chimed in on, can “HUMOR” get a button on the top bar? I agree that “ENTREPRENEURSHIP” can easily be abbreviated to make room. I suggest CLKBAIT.
So, perhaps the traffic (sorry, “reader engagement”) that “Humor” generates on Medium, or the number of people who have flagged that topic as of interest, doesn’t justify getting one of the top ten slots on the top of the main page. That’s fine, but perhaps one of those ten slots could be reserved to be unique to each viewer, to show their top topic of interest based on their reading history? Maybe that would take too much coding, but I spend most of my time on Medium on “Humor” and it would be cool and save me a Click-Scroll-Click combo to see it at the top of the page. I’m sure the wits and roustabouts among us agree.
If it’s not possible or smart from a business perspective to have HUMOR be one of the top ten topics on the front page, that’s fine. But could we at least have a link from top-bar catch-all “CULTURE”?
[On that note, as far as all the clickbait self-improvement articles on Medium, and specifically those about fostering your “personal brand” and how to be an amazing writer, I am reminded of a line/story/bit by Jerry Seinfeld from an episode of Comedians in Cars… to paraphrase: “As a favor, I spoke to a ‘comedy class’ that an old friend was teaching. The class was called, ‘How to Succeed as a Comedian.’ I opened with, ‘Let me just say, the very fact that you’re in this class…is a bad sign.’” — ed.]
I love that line.
Anyway, back to the manifesto!
3. A Unique Page
Humor is different from the other topics on Medium in one, primary way: It’s funny.
This main difference is exaggerated by the necessary earnestness of much of the rest of the writing on Medium (not a knock; I know there are serious things to write and read about right now and not everything lends itself to puns, alliteration, and unexpected-rule-of-three-curse-words-like-this-“shit”). But perhaps humor’s uniqueness justifies having a topic page that’s a little different than the others.
Right now, the topic pages have a “For You” section at the top, and then an infinity-scroll “In Case You Missed It” below that. Fine.
But, HUMOR (and probably other topics too) could benefit from a short side-table with links to the top, active (so many publications are defunct for years but still show up on searches), writer publications specializing in… (wait for it)…humor. I know Medium isn’t big on publications right now
but perhaps in the future Medium will bring them into the fold because they are really the best and only tool for aspiring writers without their own audiences to pool their resources to get exposure without having to solely rely on getting noticed by the curators (especially introverts who don’t have a lot of Facebook friends or don’t want to bombard all their close friends, relatives, and acquaintances with their acquired-taste humor articles on Medium). So it would be great if the top humor publications (plus a rotating sample of non-“top,” but still good ones) could be linked to in a side window.
Then, you could have windows with four or so current articles in subtopics (in addition to the regular subtopic links at the top) to allow all the myriad forms of humor to get a peek at a larger audience. E.g., Satire, Parody, Wordplay, Political Humor, Absurdism, Knock-Knock Jokes, Wellerisms, Tom Swifties, etc. (OK, so, maybe the Tom Swifties can wait, …Tom said, slowly, impatiently, and with knowing self-awareness…[Ah hah!])
I admit, this may be too big of an ask — to design a unique topic page just for humor — but if you think that’s big, wait for this…
4. A Dedicated Medium-Humor Site/Brand
At the risk of shooting for the moon and shooting myself in the foot in the process (which is what I get for holding up the barrel of my moon gun with my feet, like a bipod, if you can imagine): Would it be too much to ask for Medium to consider creating its own standalone humor site under the Medium umbrella?
Would it be too much to ask for Medium to consider creating its own standalone humor site under the Medium umbrella?
It makes sense. Humor does stand apart from all the other Important and Serious topics on Medium, but Humor and especially its subtopic/genre “Satire” are vital and historically integral components of the written and rhetorical form (dating from Horace and Juvenal in Classical Roman times to Swift, Pope, and Sterne in the Enlightenment.) In short, you just can’t have an all-encompassing site for writing — like Medium is, in all its glory — without having humor and satire be a part of it.
Given the genre’s stature within the community of the written word, and its unique nature, it would be really great and an honor to have a standalone (but together) brand/community/whatever for Humor within/associated with Medium.
But it would also make business sense!
As I detailed somewhat here:
this is not a great time to be a humor writer online. As it has with many other forms of capital-W “Writing,” — like, I don’t know, newspapers and magazines generally — streaming video and “Peak TV” have decimated the audience for written humor. And humor writers don’t expect to make much, if any, money.
But Medium is nonetheless daring to be a site for Writing (that includes written humor, which it must, see infra, and that, critically, offers a way for its writers to get paid money) so shouldn’t Medium try to stake its claim as the best place for written humor, just as it aims to do for the rest of Writing on the internet?
Shouldn’t Medium try to stake its claim as the best place for written humor, just as it aims to do for the rest of Writing on the internet?
This would benefit Medium, which would grow its paying audience, and Medium’s humor writers, who would collectively get a higher-visibility platform tailored to their work and that lets them earn money in Medium’s system.
The Medium humor site/brand would have a dedicated curator(s), ideally some/one from among its own writers.
And growing the audience with better visibility would be easy pickings. There is clearly a lot of written-humor ground out there not claimed by The Onion. In fact, all of online written-humor is available to be claimed for Spain (or, in this case, Medium.)
In fact, I am not out to trash other “humor” sites on the internet, but this is where things are right now, humor-wise, online:
I wish I had a more adroit, erudite, and polished way to say this, but… this kind of shit sucks.
There are still ADULTS who want to read humor that is not a listicle, or “remember when” clickbait B.S., or a Powerpoint slide show of cats, or dating advice, or stuff about how doing shots is hilarious. (BTW, is SIX ITEMS really the standard limit of a listicle these days?! Do they think we literally have the attention span of puppies?!)
There are people over 24 who appreciate good, cogent, well-written satire, and (this is the best word for it) wit.
There are people who live with their own children, not hungover roommates (but sometimes them too), who appreciate the absurd and want to read silly funny things, but things that are also SMART and well-written and original.
And those people are not being served by the current state of written humor online.
And those people will pay $5/month to find wit on the internet on Medium… But only if they know about it and don’t have to dig for it there.
Let me sum this up:
- Medium currently plays host to the smartest, best writing on the internet, longform and otherwise. Thus, Medium also plays host to the written humor on the internet, longform and otherwise. Q.E.D. (I know, “What an asshole!” But it just seemed like a good place for it.)
- There is a paying audience for that “content” (I hate that term, but it fits here), i.e., intelligent, well-written, “adult,” humor.
- Other “humor” sites are not serving that audience; they are catering to college kids — literally and by their own admission.
- Accordingly, that audience may not entirely be on Medium right now because they have probably given up trying to find smart humor online.
- Medium is uniquely positioned to reach out and capture a more mature, financially-able audience for written humor that is currently totally un-served and untapped. In fact, Medium is probably the only major tech/media outfit that is able and potentially willing to do so (unless Vox Media is interested [if so, DM me on Twitter]).
- Going after that under-served comedic audience with a dedicated humor site/brand within Medium would benefit Medium by growing its paying subscriber base and burnishing its exposure/brand and — let’s face it — boost its “cool” factor (which is sometimes lacking) by having a part of Medium that is funny and a little less earnest/self-helpy.
- Last, but not least, there are an absolute shit-ton of great humor writers on this site who want to write good, sharp, intelligent humor — not the type of crap that the other 2–3 humor sites online want to purvey. So the content will be there.
If all those things are true, could Medium not benefit from creating its own written humor brand/site within the Medium umbrella? The Onion is The Onion and it does what it does, and Medium doesn’t do videos, but could Medium not compete and win — or at least stake out its own ground — against Cracked and College Humor’s written “material”?
Or if that’s too big an ask, can we start with a topic link on the front page?
Could Medium not compete and win — or at least stake out its own ground — against Cracked and College Humor’s written “material”?
Or if that’s too big an ask, can we start with a topic link on the front page?
5. (Last but not least) A Name…Shmedium?
I will leave it to the herd to come up with a better idea, but we need a, I think it’s called a “hashtag” so we can keep this discussion going and tag articles about it so we can find them. Maybe this name could double as the name of some future Medium-branded humor site/space. Or maybe it doesn’t need to. For now, because it is 5:36 A.M. and I am wearing down, I am going to use #shmedium, as in “Medium? Shmedium!” It was funny to say that kind of thing in the 1930s I think, and it still carries some vague association with humor. It is also short and to the point.
#shmedium
So, please tag replies and articles about this with #shmedium and let’s get this ball rolling! If we all want this to happen, it will happen.
Conclusion
In summation, I think all any of us really want is some more exposure for humor on Medium.
In summation, I think all any of us really want is some more exposure for humor on Medium.
It’s one thing for us to put our humorous Medium-scribblings on Facebook, or send them to friends on Twitter, or have something featured on the (currently buried) Humor topic page or — God and a curator willing — the Medium front page, but it would be really cool if there were a real space for humor on Medium. A real, dedicated humor page or even a whole humor site associated with Medium where we could all feature our work and collaborate to create intelligent, witty humor online, which has been missing for a long, long time. Something with its own Twitter feed, its own Instagram page, and whatever else. THE INTERNET NEEDS THIS!
Importantly: This is not asking for a favor.
More prominently featuring humor on Medium or even giving humor its own space/site/brand associated with Medium would add subscribers to Medium and thus make more money for Medium. It would also serve smart, mature humor connoisseurs who are not well served online, as well as humor writers who want to reach that well-heeled audience. Medium humor writers to Medium: Help us help you!
Medium humor writers to Medium: Help us help you!
What Next?
So, what should we do next? Does someone want to start a group on Slack or something? I think that would be a great idea anyway for all the humor writers on Medium to be able to trade ideas, jokes, pieces, collaboration, unionize, fight the power, whatever. Then what? Someone tell me, because I don’t know what else to do.
P.P.S. Tagging and apologies
Because I don’t know what else to do, I am now going to do the “@” thing with a bunch of the “Top Writers” in Humor, those who replied to Ellie’s original article, and some people at Medium in the hopes of getting some eyeballs on this article and getting some traction. If that is not cool and you want me to untag you, just do a private note and I will. Sorry in advance, I just want someone besides nobody to read this.
Tom Mitchell Jessica Wildfire The Crow Gutbloom E.R. Ellsworth Terrye Turpin Pete M Richardson Steven Rouach Robert Cormack Chaz Hutton ThunderPuff Allan Ishac Harris Sockel Scott Muska Luke Trayser Steve Bouchard Shani Silver Ginny Hogan Mary Cella Zach Watson The Nib Kristen Pyszczyk Roy Niki Marinis Devon Henry alto Hassan S. Ali Sarah Lofgren Stephan Neidenbach Kyrie Gray Amanda Rosenberg Phillip T Stephens Sasha Stankovic Stephen M. Tomic Jonathan Greene Maggie Lalley Bebe Nicholson Christopher Daniels (Notorious DCI) Mike Range Mac McCarty Indira Reddy David Caracciolo Gerard Mclean Mark Starlin Daniel DeMarco Jack Herlocker Nicole Henley Bethany Heck Frankie G. Harper Thorpe Matt Querzoli Lee Blevins Lauren Morris Mark Starlin Jennifer Sartore Hulst Greg Schwem Kay Bolden Sravani Saha Joe Váradi MEL Hell Ravani K. Alice Sandry Devorah Blachor Sara Katherine Runnels Gary M. Almeter JS Burton Anthony Bisotti Aubrey Bellamy Irving Ruan Kyle Harding Tommy Paley Rene Ramirez Charles Chu David Smooke Gunnar Rice Medium Staff Jeff Barton Alex Vikmanis Devin Wallace Chris Trew Joey McKeown Joseph Michael Levy Stephanie Georgopulos Danielle Maurer Humor in Heels Ev Williams Jennie Young Kasadee Allan Marissa Maciel Ryan Dell Marc Jackson Rohini Vibha Stacy Elizabeth Stevenson Brooke Preston Matthew Hall Kitanya Harrison Quinn Myers Slackjaw Laura Chanoux Drew Landry Allen Strickland Williams Jenilee Mead Yasmine Surovec The New Yorker The New York Times
Did I miss anyone? Please tag others or pass it around however you do that on here.
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