It happened on Medium: March roundup
Last month’s most-read stories, most-highlighted sentences, and a few publications brand-new to Medium
Hello, lovely Medium humans!
Did you know that Medium is a remote workplace? We have colleagues all over the U.S. and around the world, and we do all of the work we do from a home office, or a coffee shop, or a co-working space, or wherever we happen to find ourselves at any particular moment.
As a company, we’re pretty opinionated about what remote work means to us, even going so far as to start a publication focused on it. Personally, I love having the flexibility of a remote office, especially knowing how hard we work to develop a close working culture. But since some connections can only be built face-to-face, last week all of us Medians* gathered for an IRL offsite.
We gathered to focus on what we need to do to make Medium better for everyone who makes this place what it is: you—our readers, writers, and editors. We shared favorite stories, dove deep into publications, and had long conversations about what we need to do to help you share the ideas and stories you write every day. Being together in one place gives off a summer camp vibe in myriad ways, but I most appreciated the creation of the sort of collective memories that would have been impossible in the separate offices of the before times. And tbqh, it also helped that we gathered mere days after hitting a pretty nifty milestone in the history of this pretty nifty platform.
All to say, we’re all pumped after a week of nerding out on all things Medium and full of energy to keep making this one of the better places on the internet.
ANYHOO, so much happened in March—let’s review, shall we?
Stay curious,
Amy Widdowson, VP of Communications, and the team at Medium
*‘Median’ is one of the names we use in reference to ourselves and our colleagues.
Medium by the numbers
In March 2024…
- You published 100,000 stories in publications.
- You created 63,570 new public lists.
- 2,752 stories were Boosted last month. 1,824 of those were nominated by the 131 editors in the Boost Nomination Pilot.
March’s most-highlighted passages
“Honesty is direct, whereas dishonesty tends to be indirect.” — Joshua Mason, “I’m an (Actual) Detective: Here are 7 Signs That Someone Is Lying to You”
“Wisdom manifests in many ways: Seeing the big picture. Exercising emotional control. Demonstrating compassion. Making decisions based on a broad perspective. Avoiding black-and-white thinking.” — Kathleen Murphy, “The Brain Science Behind Aging and Forgetting”
“Your best work springs from honesty and truth. From that unique voice, only you possess, deep within, longing to sing to the world.” — John P. Weiss, “Embrace the Thing That Is Truly You”
“Writing is my yes. It’s flowing. It brings me joy. Through it, I’ve met some of my favorite people. It’s made my life so much richer.” — kasey sparks, “My Life Feels Best When I Ride the Waves of ‘Yes’”
The 10 most-read stories in March
- “The Brain Science Behind Aging and Forgetting” by Kathleen Murphy, health writer and essayist, in Wise and Well
- “The Math Behind Neural Networks” by Cristian Leo, data scientist, in Towards Data Science
- “Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter” by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
- “The Future of Poetry” by Sierra Elman, 8th grade student and poet
- “Where Are the Black People in Shogun?” by William Spivey in AfroSapiophile
- “My journey to being diagnosed with autism at 32” by Janna Lynn
- “The Untold Story Behind the Key Bridge Collapse in Baltimore” by Ryan Fan in Corporate Underbelly
- “A New Coefficient of Correlation” by Tim Sumner, statistician and data scientist, in Towards Data Science
- “When Friendships Expire” by Jenn L. in Modern Women
- “Post Less, Write More” by Isra A. in The Writing Cooperative
Most popular stories from the Medium archive
Some stories never really get old. Day after day, month after month, and year after year, you return to these timeless Medium stories (many of them originally published several months or even years ago). Here are a few evergreen stories you read, shared, highlighted, and applauded in March:
“The Nerd Urban Dictionary” by Chris Anderson, former EIC of Wired and author of The Long Tail and Makers: The New Industrial Revolution. Originally published in September 2020.
“Priors” instead of assumptions; (if you want to get really nerdy, you can say “posteriors” instead of conclusions). (“All political discussion on Twitter is just people confirming their priors”)
“N” instead of many (“It’s really an N-dimensional problem”)
“N of 1” instead of unique. (“He’s an n of 1; good luck beating him”)
“AI and the American Smile” by jenka, essayist and UX designer. Originally published in March 2023.
In the same way that English language emotion concepts have colonized psychology, AI dominated by American-influenced image sources is producing a new visual monoculture of facial expressions.
“10 Important Things to Look for in a Rattlesnake Fence Provider — the Definitive Buyer’s Guide to Snake Fencing” by Bryan D. Hughes, rattlesnake researcher and wildlife photographer. Originally published in November 2018.
The rattlesnake relocation group that I manage is called to homes to capture rattlesnakes in the most rattlesnake-heavy urban areas in the country: the Phoenix and Tucson metro-areas. Aside from the thousands of rattlesnakes I have personally captured at homes, my team has captured just as many, as the busiest and most-experienced rattlesnake removal team in the country.
Boosted stories by new writers
Here’s a handpicked selection of boosted stories by writers who published on Medium for the first time last month — let’s give them a warm welcome.
“Asking users for their pronouns: A guide for UX designers” by Chelsea Roden, UX designer and product manager, in UX collective
Incorporating a pronoun selector into your design is not just about ticking a box for inclusivity — it’s about actively affirming and respecting the identities of your users. I created this guide for anyone considering adding a pronoun selector or you’re evaluating your current selector.
“A love letter to my Long Covid body” by Fabienne Harford in Long Covid Connection
It’s strange. This virus doesn’t seem to have wrecked my heart or my lungs or my brain. It seems to have crept a little deeper and taken out some tiny screw in the deepest machinery of me that was holding this entire autonomic system together and now — even if all the parts are still functional — they are unable to function as a team.
“My First Startup Failed — 5 Lessons I Learned to Get it Right the Next Time” by Tarek Arafat, co-founder and CEO @ TableOne in Entrepreneurship Handbook
The idea stage of a startup should be like a virus within you. It’s all you can think about, talk about, and you’ll do whatever it takes to get it out of your body and bring it to life.
Celebrating women’s history
In the Daily Edition last month, we highlighted some of your perspectives on the antiestablishment origins of International Women’s Day. The holiday began with a 1908 protest for better working conditions and higher pay in New York City, before triggering pacifist protests during World War I and eventually being recognized by the UN in 1977. Elsewhere on Medium, veteran Melissa Corrigan delivered a salute to women in uniform and Aradhana Khowala, tourism and hospitality executive, argued that “women need men at the forefront of this movement.” Browse more perspectives on the Women’s History topic page.
New publications
We also welcomed a few new publications to Medium:
- Humans with ADHD spotlights the stories, struggles, and achievements of people with — according to its editor, Danish Pannu — “a billion ideas running in their heads, but very little space to execute them.” Here’s writer Jody Gates shares how to get comfortable leaving tasks incomplete. To submit, head here.
- Novelist, essayist, and Columbia University professor marie myung-ok lee’s Asian American Book Club is exactly that: a space to gather for conversation about Asian American lit (but not straight-up book reviews). One recent example: poet Barbara Tran reveals how the menu at her parents’ Vietnamese restaurant inspired her latest book. Submit here.
What did we miss? What would you like to see in next month’s roundup? Drop a line in the responses.
For more notable stories, writers, and publications, head over to “What We’re Reading” and Staff Picks. Also, subscribe to our daily newsletter: The Daily Edition.
