Yes! I am consistently having my work curated and then a week or so later it’s uncurated without any explanation whatsoever. I have no idea why this happens – whether it’s a two stage vetting thing or whether there’s a time limit and then newer pieces are curated. It’s incredibly frustrating to have a piece being distributed in 3 topics only to have the rug pulled out from under you. Readership plummeted and if you’re trying to build an audience (as I am) – ultimately very unhelpful.

Like you I am working in an industry in which I have no connections or social capital. The theatre and TV world in the U.K. are heavily dominated by affluent white people almost all of whom at the top end went to university together – two specific universities in fact. I had to win an anonymously judged new writing competition to get my first play published and secure an agent.

When the odds are stacked against you, a place like Medium feels like a beloved meritocracy…. And I’d be fine with being removed from topics if there were some Transparency about the process. You can’t be in a meritocratic system when you don’t know the rules and you’re subject to the changing whims of individuals. Even a statement about how and why people are curated and then uncurated would be helpful – because then at least I’d know and I’d be able to adjust or ignore accordingly.

Medium ignores indie writers at its peril. It employee a bunch of journalists and turned into a left-wing nepotism fuelled social justice online newspaper for a year in 2020. They were lucky to retain any centre ground liberal or right wing indie writers at all after that shit show.

Great article and I’m with you 100% – indies deserve to be better treated.