What Happend After I Accidentally Went Viral on Medium
What It’s Like (And How Much $$$ You Make) When Your Article Breaks the Internet
I had just finished a day of responding to emails for my business.
The TV was on in the background: A news conference was being held about the fate of the six people aboard the Titanic submersible. It was a sad finale to the news sensation that had captured the attention of the world: all six people on board had died.
Reporters fielded a number of questions, but there was one that came up a few times that surprised me: “Will you be retrieving the bodies?”
It seemed like a silly question. As the son of a career oceanographer, I know a little bit about what happens to bodies at those pressures. There were no bodies. The bodies were instantaneously transformed into a cloud of red tide.
So, I got an idea for a quick article. It was a hastily researched piece, fueled more by curiosity and fascination than any expectation of mass appeal. The topic was tragic, timely, and perhaps a bit grim for casual readers:
