The Days When I Only Clapped Once

There were days in the not so distant past when I had no idea you could clap more than once for a story, and I was completely ignorant of that fact for the first few months I was a member here. I just kept reading article after article, thoroughly enjoying myself, sipping sweet tea from a Mason jar, having the time of my life, munching on unsalted peanuts from a cereal bowl, and clapping only once.

Imagine my dismay when I came upon an article entitled “I Am The One Who Claps Once”. I mean, holy frak buckets! All these other places like Facebook, Instagram and Fubar, you know, they’ve got these single use clap buttons that you can use only once (as far as I know. Are they multiple use? I never considered this. Have I offended everyone I know? Everyone I don’t know, but admire from afar? Celebrities? David Lee Roth? Paul McCartney? Krista Allen? DAMMITT! I’ll have to go check later. I just might have a lot of work to do tonight.)

So, anyway, there I was clapping once for all these articles I was reading — I was a repeat offender and never knew it.

And then I read that article addressing the one clap crisis.

As soon as I found out, I went through my history to find all the Medium stories I read in the past, like, for as far back as my web browser history app would allow. I must have spent several hours just re-clapping for those underclapped stories, and I quite possibly even clapped for some I didn’t truly like, which should probably be totally embarrassing, but I’m still learning, so I don’t know.

So, I multi clapped the whole time. Just sat there and hammered away at the clap button. Sweet tea, unsalted peanuts, Harold Budd on Spotify, there I sat, clapping away.

I have big fingers. Clapping is HARD. It’s great if I make the hit, but if I miss, I find myself looking at a page that displays all the people who’ve clapped for the story, which gets really confusing for me. One moment? Clapping. The next? List of previous clappers.

So, once I found myself there, I didn’t know how to get back to the story I was clapping for. I mean, just what bloody kind of page is this list, anyway? Is it a popup? If so, is there a big ‘X’ somewhere I can tap to close the popup, or do I just hit the ‘back’ button? Because sometimes hitting the back button takes you right back to your browser start page, and all your work is lost. I mean, I’m getting the hang of it all now, but it was really harrowing back in the day a few months ago.

Wait. I’ve lost myself here. I need to back up a little bit.

For the longest time — I mean, a few months can seem that way when you’re really struggling — I was actually tapping the clap button fifty separate times, with a hit to miss ratio of — well, I don’t want to make it a statistic, or anything. Plus, I’m bad at math, so I wouldn’t be able to figure it out, anyway. Plus, it was far worse than my Galaga ratios. Just humiliating.

And then today — JUST TODAY — I learned by complete accident you didn’t have to hammer the damn clap button at all. You could just hold it down, and in a few seconds, you’ve maxed out your claps.

I had no idea. I mean, what next, or should I even ask?