The top Medium stories of 2024 by reads and shares

🎁 It’s our last issue of 2024. If you’ve been reading since January, thank you!
Issue #238: better meetings + blob people

This week, we’ve shared top highlights, responses, publications, and new writers of the year. But more than anything, Medium is a home for stories — so, we dug through our trove of data to bring you a list of 2024’s top stories by views and reads. [Please imagine a drumroll here, but instead of drums it’s the clacking sound of millions of writers tapping furiously on their laptops or mechanical keyboards of choice] The top stories of 2024 are…

1. My Statement on President Biden’s Announcement by Former President Barack Obama
2. Common side effects of not drinking by cultural anthropologist Karolina Kozmana
3. 50 Completely True Things by Palestinian-American creative Mo Husseini
4. The secret life of people with high self-control (it’s easier than you think) by user researcher Riikka Iivanainen
5. The art of disappearing by writer Remi
6. How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode by Senior Software Engineer at Semantive Maciej Pocwierz
7. This must be the place by writer Jennifer Pahlka
8. The Dramatic Shift of the 2024 Paris Olympic Pictograms by game designer and programmer Elijah Cobb
9. Why I Put Pronouns on my Email Signature (and LinkedIn profile) and You Should Too by trans non-fiction writer Max Masure
10. The Beauty of Trying by writer thekidultwriter

And here are the top 10 stories by the number of times they were shared across the internet:

1. The art of disappearing by Remi
2. Roadmap to Learn AI in 2024 by data scientist Benedict Neo in bitgrit Data Science Publication
3. The Beauty of Trying by thekidultwriter
4. How to *really* know you’re in love by Kris Gage
5. These Words Make it Obvious That Your Text is Written By AI by James Presbitero Jr. in Practice in Public
6. How I Am Using a Lifetime 100% Free Server by full-stack web developer Harendra
7. Life Lessons I Know at 40 (That I Wish I Knew at 20) by New York Times bestseller Mark Manson
8. What Actually Matters in Your 20s by Smoul in Practice in Public
9. The Art of Not Making a Decision by Emilie
10. Ultimate Python Cheat Sheet: Practical Python For Everyday Tasks by software engineer Jason Roell in Stackademic

Explore more top stories in our end-of-year post.

We’re taking a break next week, but we’ll see you back here in 2025 with more stories, ideas, and perspectives to deepen understanding.

— Harris Sockel and the team @ Medium

🏠 One more story: On remote work

I’m biased because this story is written by one of my colleagues, Medium Chief of Staff Brittany Jezouit — but Brittany really is one of the best Zoom meeting facilitators on Earth. I’ve never been in a meeting led by Brittany that didn’t feel worth my time. Here are three of her tips, worth keeping in your back pocket for 2025:

• Implement a “no chat” rule to help everyone stay focused on the conversation itself (and not on Zoom’s text chat feature).
• During meetings, ask your colleagues to close Slack (or Teams, or their inbox).
• To avoid that “who wants to go first?” awkwardness, just drop a list of who’s talking, in what order, into the chat.

🌲 And lastly…

Taking a page from psychologist Sorina Raluca Băbău: Which blob person are you?

I’ll go one step further… which blob person will you be in 2025?

Photo by blobtree.com via Sorina Raluca Băbău

I’ll be #8-ing for the next few weeks, but hoping to come roaring back as a #10 in 2025. Tag yourself in the responses, if you like. And happy early New Year, from all of us here at Medium.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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