Rise of the Happy Clappers

Trending On Medium

Times change, and with them the bizarre habits of the Medium membership clammering for pennies worth of return.

In the past month, I’ve noticed this odd new phenomenon, where random Medium members with a few thousand followers but who themselves follow just one account, suddenly appear out of nowhere and slap a handful of claps on maybe ten of my stories, all within a few moments but not lingering long enough to show up as readers.

When I saw the first, I had that momentary fizz of internal excitement when you think perhaps someone finally understands you, but it was followed very rapidly by another from a different user, at which point I instinctively smelled rat meat.

These things have got to be bots, right?

Either fake accounts or some sort of automation trawling for victims and plopping claps across a bunch of recent posts.

But for what?

Is it follower building? I know that I am not the only one to realize that dropping a clap on a story has a reasonable likelihood of getting a follow in return. These users appear to have sizeable followings, and they do also have content (usually click bait-y stuff of no interest to me), so it seems to fit the formula.