This Isn’t How Consent Works, Medium

“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission”

Screenshot from my email

It’s been a while since I wrote on Medium. But when I received the above email I just had to dust off my keyboard and type some words of righteous anger.

One of the main reasons I stopped writing here was the oversaturation of ‘make money online’ types, who had descended like a plague of locusts upon the site, greedily shilling their (heavily discounted!) courses.

Luckily, whenever the urge to repeatedly bash my head into a hard object came upon me, I could always close the tab, go outside and touch some grass, or even photograph some birds.

So I did. And I haven’t returned for almost a year, save for a few brief glances at the homepage.

I thought I was safe.

I thought they couldn’t hurt me as long as I didn’t look into the mirror and say “conman, conman, conman” three times.

Yet, as someone in Jurassic Park once said (probably), grift finds a way.

Hence the alarming email I received from Medium, telling me someone had added me to their email list, and that I could always unsubscribe if I didn’t want it.

Names have been withheld to protect the guilty. And to be fair, Medium has apparently made…