Where Are My Claps, Internet?!
Sometimes, I find myself refreshing my Medium homepage over and over again because I love the green dot on the bell icon 🔔 — but I rarely see that.
I don’t doubt my talent, not at all! 😅
I suspect something is wrong with my home Wi-Fi or time zone, so I don’t get any notifications 🔔 (green dot on the bell icon).
Then I restart my phone. Still no relief.
Then I look at my Wi-Fi router; it seems to be teasing me by flashing a green light (no notification, he he he) 🛜
Within a series of phone restarts and page refreshes, I get it. Oh my god, I got it! I got a notification, i.e., the green dot on the bell icon… 🔔😁
“ABC clapped for your story 👏.”
“New follower 🥳.” (XYZ has started following you.)
I refresh the page again to see how many followers I have…
Shocking.. 😲
Three followers are gone. Hey, what’s this? Someone just followed me, and how did these three followers go away?
Oh, I remembered. I probably didn’t follow anyone back, so they are gone. Sorry! 🙇🏻
My whole concentration was on the notification. I didn’t even think about following back.
Again… silence..
No notification…
No green dot on the bell icon 🔔
The cycle of refreshing and restarting continues… 🔃
🔔 “Your story appeared in a publication. XYZ started following you. ABC clapped and responded to your story.”
But instead, I just got… silence.
No claps. 👏👏
No comments. 💬
Not a single kind follower.
I started to doubt everything.
Is my story invisible?
Did I forget to publish my story?
Did the Medium gods go on vacation?
Refresh. 🔃 Still nothing.
Refresh again… Still nothing. 😥
Sometimes I convince myself the internet is bad. Other times, I blame time zones. Or algorithms. Or maybe today’s horoscope is retrograde again. 😤
And yet…
I’m sitting here with a cup of tea (which has gone cold by now), refreshing my homepage like it’s my job. 🔃
The Final Hope:
Maybe one day, I’ll write a story titled👇🏻
“Refreshing Medium Too Much Gave Me Thumb Tendonitis.”
It will go viral. I’ll get 123 claps.
Three comments.
And a new follower named Claps49.
Until then, I’ll keep refreshing.
Dear readers,
Please let me know what your experience has been with Medium notifications and their statistics. I hope you are not as surprised and disappointed as I was. 😂
Always keep smiling. Thanks for reading. 😊