Before I get into the nitty gritty details of how I got here and why the existence of this website really means a whole lot to me, let me provide some simple, sweet details about myself.
My name is Emii. I'm 26 years old and live in Maryland of the United States.
I'm a lifelong sci-fi nerd with a love for ethical technology, mushroom and wild edible foraging, pharmaceutical and ancient history, urban homesteading, and exotic plant collecting.
I worked as a Content Manager for 4 years in the eCommerce Industry, but now work in Sustainability as a Compost Collections Driver. That means I get to drive around in a big white van and pick up buckets of food waste from the county and surrounding counties to turn into high-quality fresh compost in a huge pile back at the site. The nutritious soil is eventually given back to the community and sold to local and commercial customers. It's calm and some of the most freeing work I've ever had the privilege of doing, and it allows me the ability to deep dive into research via audiobooks and podcasts while on my route.
In the early evening, I write for my blog FutureSeed on Medium (new website coming soon). That research gets turned into articles covering topics including:
- Sustainable Living
- AgriTech
- BioTech
- Artificial Intelligence
and
- Robotics
The goal of my content is to promote ethical technology and sustainable living, while also introducing as many people as possible to some of the coolest futuristic developments in our world. I'm a huge fan of the Solarpunk and Cyberpunk genres, which are huge influences on how I tend to see the world. Through promoting my work, I hope to bridge accessibility of some of the most incredible technology out there to the general public for a more equitable, sustainable, and creative future.
Goodbye Explore Page
During the week of my 26th birthday, I decided to quit Instagram.
Up until this past summer, I'd worked as an eCommerce and Social Media Content Manager for four years. My entire livelihood during that time period depended on making a select few people very wealthy on Amazon and other top marketplaces, while also promoting both their brands and my own brand, a side hustle Etsy store called Astral Elixirs Apothecary.
My entire childhood past the age of 9 has been on the internet. I remember a childhood without mainstream online communities before they existed. Used to love spending hours upon hours on GaiaOnline and early YouTube. Consuming content meant something then, because artists would commission gorgeous art for real money or game currency, YouTubers would produce home-produced sketches that relied exclusively on creativity.
I, like many, had aspired to be a Youtuber for a living. At the very least, a content creator.
It would be another 15 years before YouTube decided on the Adpocalypse as its best course of action to purge any non-advertiser friendly content from its platform... effectively ending the era of unique content on YouTube in exchange for a money hungry creator culture of sameness.
I watched the internet evolve from something collectively created with thousands of website communities across the web to a centralized nightmare of 6 top platforms that hoard wealth, and payout little to the monetized creators who provide the backbone of their hyperattention profit model.
In 2017, I entered this industry as an eCommerce Manager. My role was to create as much media content to optimize product listings for the search engine and customer engagement as possible, in order to convince customers to hit "Add to Cart". Product photography, SEO copywriting, blog posts, infographic design, photo/video editing, 3D product modeling, spec sheets, social media campaigns with call-to-action product inserts, influencer giveaways, listing 70 products a week to five different marketplaces... you name it, I've been at the back end of your shopping experience making it look desirable.
That vantage point of the world requires you to not only consider everything that the customer wants, but as well to stay on top of the algorithm trends and new tools that get introduced to different platforms and their utility for building audience retention.
And in the last four years, a few pretty big features have been introduced to keep the public hooked:
Endless scroll... never feel tempted to close the application, because you'll never reach the bottom of the page. Why would you want to leave when you can keep track of everything going on in the world? It'll never end.
Explore pages... endless scrolling grids of endless scrolling grids of endless scrolling grids. All of the content you could possibly want, endlessly at your fingertips.
Stories... For posting when you're not posting to post about people posting. And seeing who's seeing your posts so that you can figure out ways for them to see more posts.
Short form video content... kill the world's attention span for the opportunity to go viral, and either end up mentally damaged from the comment section or on the world's biggest dopamine high that you just have to keep pumping out more and more and more.
In four years, I've watched things go from bad to worse. Something changed with social media during the pandemic and the introduction of endless scroll video content.
Are these features cool? Yeah, back on the individual apps they were a part of. Those apps went viral because they were unique and different. Snapchat, Vine, Pinterest, Tumblr-- the origins of social media's most addictive features for connection. Yet because of the big 6's need to be exactly like each other to compete in the market, we've all been left the consequence of sameness and features of all of their competitors imitated in order to dominate our attention spans.
Sameness... with a side of extremism.
This perspective, in effect, has made it clearly visible to me what went wrong with the internet, and how we're now witnessing a burnt out society of billions of traumatized, radicalized, attention-driven individuals Pavlov'd bunched onto the big 6 all-powerful-faction-platforms into the uncharted unsustainable territory of rapidly declining mental health and an ongoing fear of potential civil war outbreak.
At what point do we decide that 6 platforms are way too small for 8 billion people to cram into and argue our way towards societal oblivion?
And So I Quit
Needless to say, I've had enough.
I quit Instagram, my biggest braineater.
Barely go on Facebook.
Go on TikTok to occasionally promote my articles.
They don't allow me balance, so I will refuse to use them. They feel worse than they did four years ago.
This platform gives me confidence that Web3 is the future and the answer to these issues.
My good friend @pooky put me onto Hive only a day before I wrote this, and instantly I was hooked.
This feels like the old internet.
Twitter getting gutted and tech stocks tanking have made me realize that we're going to soon witness a rebirth of the old internet. In many ways, I hope that this website sets the precedent and framework for the new-old internet.
If it could develop into one where multitudes of communities can exist across the web, where people can just calm down and act democratically to protect their spaces and not feel like any of their freedom of speech or press are under attack, with monetization both sourced from the people for the people supporting the platform over advertisers.
This is some of the most amazing grassroots work I've ever seen. And I hope to see more ecosystems follow in the footsteps of PEAKD.
Hi Emii, you're the Gen Z and have seen so many changes on the web, welcome to the next best thing on the metaverse
Welcome emii🤗
Welcome Emii :)
I've been having similar thoughts for a while. Those platforms are like Victorinox knifes - overloaded with functions, but none of the tools are good enough to really use. Seriously, who'd use the scissors on a pen knife, if they knew about real scissors?
Yes! Thanks for putting my feeling into words! The signal-to-noise ratio is so much better here than on FB and the Bird Place. When i read the words "old internet" I realized what feels so good about Hive: it reminds me of calling up BBS's or joining web forums, taking part in discussions on anything from Star Trek to cooking, where there seldom were any troll comments or spam.
One thing I recall about the BBSs I frequented is that since they usually only had one or two phone lines, they didn't want someone to just call in and stay all day, keeping everybody else from getting in, so people were disconnected after reaching 10-15 minutes, and then not allowed in again until next day. But by adding content - posting in the forums, uploading texts and freeware apps etc - one could earn extra minutes. Kind of like how Hive works: by posting and interacting with others one earns HP which allows one to interact even more!
So glad you see it the same way! Definitely a better signal-to-noise ratio. It's so relieving to not feel like every single post is going to make people lose their shit in the comments, debating over who has the better opinion and who's better informed. I think it's pushed us in the complete opposite direction of progress. It's not making life better for anyone, of any demographic, just putting more emphasis on the most controversial takes that wouldn't have even had a voice in a prior version of the internet... just to get dismissed as trolls.
I remember a time when even the time "internet troll" didn't equate to completely verbally beating someone into submission, alignment with hate groups or threats of hate crimes, but was just some rando asshole on the internet that you might have to deal with once or twice a day, if you'd even come across one at all in a given week. Now, with social engineering protocols that loveeee conflict because it means higher engagement, the worst people get the loudest voices, and have the power to make more people align with them. It's turned everyone into a cyberbully.
Just so done with these times of teetering towards the edge of oblivion.
Of course every post is going to make someone lose their shit! Only, here, people have learned that it's better to go to the loo and do it in private. Like the old saying "If you don't have anything positive to say, keep quiet." Disagreements turn into discussions instead of crap-wars.
I'm pretty new here too, so don't take what I say for gospel, it's just my experience of Hive so far. I saw that @anggreklestari was the one who told you about making the intro post and all. Listen to her, add a little more chili and garlic to taste, and you'll do great. Heh, not that I doubt it with your job background - and I believe I speak for all of Hive when I say: welcome to the other side. Teach us how we can use those marketing things without being devious, tell us how they work and what to watch out for... I'd better stop now before this page turns into an everscrolling neverending thing.
I've been curious about how Hive is getting marketed out, or whether it was considered good etiquette to promote the platform as a way to hopefully convince more people to ditch the big 6. If more people knew about this site's existence, there would be more incentive to leave. However, at the same time... do we really want everyone moving here, even the hyperradicalizede? Hard to say what the ideal way to get more people to turn to the side is.