10,000 Followers — What Does That Mean?

I am exceedingly grateful, but now what?

Only the contemplative contemplate (Source: Piqsels)

Amidst the current dark orgy of people complaining about Medium, I will spread some happiness. Friday, I reached the milestone of 10,000 followers on Medium. Thanks to everyone who follows me, reads my articles, and claps and comments on them. An author is little to nothing without readers.

So, I guess I’m doing pretty good on Medium. I have little idea how my stats compare with others here because Medium is more secretive than the CIA. But, for someone with no name recognition writing serious content on a platform that skews heavily toward fluff, it’s a bit of a miracle to have any success here much less what I have been blessed with.

But what does it mean to have that many followers and what happens next? What should I do next on Medium? Being a philosopher by trade and temperament, I have to ask. Self-assessment in reasonable amounts is healthy, yes?

A Comparison

Years ago, I had a political philosophy Twitter account with over 22,000 followers, and I had a related blog on Blogspot from which I earned several hundred dollars a month through banner ads. Twitter was fun because even with the then 140-character limit, I could post my thoughts and links and have dozens of upvotes and Retweets with real…