It happened on Medium in 2024
A roundup of the stories and milestones our readers and staff found most meaningful in 2024
That is one of the most highlighted lines across all of Medium in 2024, from tech and politics writer
. It’sa storyabout how, in a world of infinite variables that determine how well you do in life, there’s just one thing you can control: showing up.
Humans tend to aim for big, flashy, goals — think of the classic New Year’s resolutions like “I’ll finally get into shape,” or “I’ll write that novel.” The problem is that those goals, without consistently showing up, don’t amount to much. Your gym membership goes unused and your novel draft stays in the drawer.
Let’s start at the top with a few headline stats. In 2024, writers and readers on Medium:
Started close to 8 million drafts
Responded over 11 million times
Created 11k new publications
Curated 46k Lists
Came to Medium over 100,000,000 times through recommendations in the Daily or Weekly Digest emails
These were the stories that our readers found most valuable this year, getting the most reads, responses, and claps.
“My Statement on President Biden’s Announcement” by Former President
“Common side effects of not drinking” by cultural anthropologist
“50 Completely True Things” by Palestinian-American creative
“The secret life of people with high self-control (it’s easier than you think)” by user researcher
“We’ve added 77 countries to the Medium Partner Program” by Medium Senior Operations Associate
“the art of disappearing” by writer
“How an empty S3 bucket can make your AWS bill explode” by Senior Software Engineer at Semantive
“This must be the place” by writer
“The Dramatic Shift of the 2024 Paris Olympic Pictograms” by game designer and programmer
“Why I Put Pronouns on my Email Signature (and LinkedIn profile) and You Should Too” by trans non-fiction writer
“The Beauty of Trying” by writer
“10 Seconds That Ended My 20 Year Marriage” by former military wife
“Words and Phrases that Make it Obvious You Used ChatGPT” by Business and Analytics Masters candidate
When I looked at the most highlighted lines across Medium in 2024 — those words that most resonated and stood out to our readers — they grouped into a few common themes: self-improvement, understanding others, and understanding yourself. Here are the ideas and words our readers found most worth highlighting this year.
“People with high levels of trait self-control are good at avoiding temptation — not resisting it.” — user researcher
in her story, “The secret life of people with high self-control (it’s easier than you think)”
“There’s a fine line between taking on a worthwhile challenge, and taking on unnecessary stress.” — brand builder
in his story “Stop Wasting Your Time”
“The problem with good habits, in other words, is that they sacrifice intentionality for efficiency.” — engineer and philosophy student
, in Pragmatic Wisdom, in his story, “Goodbye, Atomic Habits”
“Showing up. Showing up with your whole self, showing up with your values and beliefs, showing up with what makes you unique, but above all — showing up with consistency.” — writer
in Westenberg, in her story, “Just Show Up.”
“If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context.” —
, social psychologist, in Human Parts, in his story “Laziness Does Not Exist.” (This story was published in 2018, but continues to find its readers even now, six years later!)
“The value of research doesn’t come from elevating people who are already shouting. It comes from finding the people who are not being heard, and adding their voices to the conversation.” — problem designer at AWS
in UX Collective, in his story “Nike’s $25B blunder shows us the limits of ‘data-driven’”
“Honesty is direct, whereas dishonesty tends to be indirect.” — former detective
in Curated Newsletters, in his story, “I’m an (Actual) Detective: Here are 7 Signs That Someone Is Lying to You”
“We throw our children to the wolves by pretending they will not drink or have sex, which means they have to figure it all out for themselves.” — former newspaper editor
in Minds Without Borders, in her story, “We Could Learn a Lot About Sex From the Dutch”
“We are the dark secrets we conceal and the mistakes that we make. We are the love left unexpressed and the unnoticed kindness.” — writer
in her story, “who are you when nobody is watching?”
“Always remember, whatever flows, flows. What goes away, let go. What comes, comes. What’s lost, let go. And what happens, accept. Better things come when you wait for what’s truly meant for you. Accepting things is better than forcing them. Never lose yourself trying to fit into someone else’s life.” —
in her story, “if it’s meant to be, it will be”
“There’s the risk of true vulnerability: uncertainty. True vulnerability requires that you don’t know. You don’t know how your share will be received; you don’t know how others will perceive you for sharing it; you don’t know if there’s a happy ending yet.” — executive coach
in Session Notes, in her story, “Fake Vulnerability is Keeping You Stuck”
When you read a great story, it’s not enough to keep it to yourself. In 2024, these were the stories that made you think that someone else needed to hear these words, too.