You know, only yesterday I was looking at the 3SBD I had earned in the entire day, and I felt ungrateful. It is a sentiment that often claws its way to the forefront of my mind, and one that has become more difficult to suppress in recent months.
When I look at other users with a reputation of 69 and above, I typically see that they are on one or more whale's autovoters. It has sometimes bothered me that I have never received such a reward for all the time I put into Steemit, and all the potential rewards I sacrificed by adhering to my morals and by fighting against the abuse of some of our most influential Steemians.
I don't know why I let it bother me. It was certainly clear to me, during the times in which I was calling out abusive whales or curation trails for their misdeeds, that I was negating any opportunity to gain support from them in the future. So it is unproductive to say the least to be wondering why I still did not get put on one later. I suppose a part of me always remained optimistic that there was decent, moral whales hiding out there somewhere; and that if I worked hard long enough, I would also get what it seems every other person my level has had.
I was a fucking idiot though. Such whales do not exist on this platform, or if they do, they pay little enough attention to what is going on here. I have known this for quite some time, which is why I stopped putting hours into my posts a good while ago now. I have no interest in having to play bingo for a payout after all I have given to the platform, and all the excellent content I once produced for the blockchain.
This is starting to sound like an attempt to make you pity me, but believe me, I need no pity from you or anyone else. I want to share this because today I have realised something important.
I looked upon my 2000 followers this morning and felt nothing. Why should I? The number means nothing after all. Many of those followers are dead accounts, many have followed hoping for a follow back, and many are accounts that serve no purpose other than following or being followed to facilitate the selling of resteems.
I then looked at my level 69 rep and realised just how little meaning this has. In fact, I wished it was lower, for I don't want others to think that mine was achieved through the autovoting of whales, as most have been.
I then went and looked at my SP, to see what I have managed to accumulate on the way to this apparent milestone. Yes. Ungrateful I felt again, for I have pretty much nothing. I realised that, for all my attempts to do good for all of you, I have accomplished exactly nothing through this platform in the last year.
That is how I felt, in that moment. But it did not last long, for I soon realised that I was wrong. I have accomplished far more than most on this platform. Living by example is something I strive towards, and I hadn't even realised that I have set one that it worthy of being looked at.
This message is directed at those of you who are afraid to speak up or act against abusers because it may negatively impact your income.
I might like to feel sorry for myself on occasion, much like everyone else, but I do recognize that I received a lot from this platform, and I did it all without betraying my sense of morality.
When someone was a cunt, I called them a cunt, regardless of their SP. I never made any dodgy deals with whales to serve myself, and anyone who knows me will know of my innovation, and that I could have found many ways to milk this teat if it was what I wanted.
I did none of that. Nor did I even play "the game" as I like to call it. I do not follow others around and comment on their posts so that they will come and comment on mine and upvote etc etc etc. I do not act friendly to anyone who I deem unworthy of it, and I have actively trolled people on steemit and dlive.
What I am getting at, is that I have done all this; remaining true to who I am, and guess how much I received for it?
I am afraid to the do the real math, but I have approximated it to 8500 STEEM and 5000 SBD.
That's enough to buy a decent house in this country, which is a fucking lot to earn in only a little over a year.
Now obviously, I don't have this right now. I was unemployed when I discovered Steemit, and have used my income from Steemit to stay afloat. But this is of my own doing, and if I had been in a place where I did not need to power down or withdraw funds, then I would likely be sitting on a very significant amount of SP.
So if you are someone with a voice, who feels that to open your mouth and have an opinion, might result in you being flagged off the platform, I would invite you to take a look at what I have achieved with Steemit-- and without censoring my voice or personality.
I genuinely feel that I am in a far better position right now, than I would have been if I had used my brain to play the game or abuse the platform to my own ends. Sure, I have nothing in terms of money. But, I have educated myself in so many useful things, things that I would not have had to if I was earning enough. Also, I am in the best fucking health of my life thanks to an accidental discovery last year, that humans can survive without food for over five days.
If I had not been poor, I would never have been starving myself to ensure my dog ate, and I would never have discovered the health benefits of fasting; which I have since done several times and now feel as though my mind and body are returning to their original glory.
There are a ton of other things that have come about as a result of my recent battle with poverty, but this seems to be getting more personal than is necessary.
The take-home from this is that; I stayed true to who I am. I allowed no threats of flags, or fear of earning less to dissuade me from doing what I would, or saying what I wanted to say. And on this platform, where the whales apparently reign supreme, I still earned myself what could have amounted to 100,000+ dollars.. In just a year.
So to all of you who make the excuse not to do the right thing, or not to challenge your fellow Steemians on their shitty behaviour, simply because it might effect your "Steemit career" or your earnings, remember the example that I have set here. Remember just how much STEEM and SBD I have earned whilst still doing what I believe to be the right thing, and remember just how much I was able to gain from having nothing, and then ask yourself if you are really going to allow fear to dictate your decisions.
The only way this place will get better is if we make the effort to change it, but that will never happen as long as so many of you censor your own voices for fear of someone pressing a downvote button on their computer- essentially, the fear of nothing at all.
I feel the same way, I was actually lucky enough to hit "bingo" the whole last week since I got into a little "drama" with someone "famous" here on steemit and ended up getting some pretty wicked rewards for it..but a day after all the payouts were finished I feel that now I am back to making 1-2 SBDs a day and it feels a little like withdrawal...
I feel you when you talk about the followers, most are dead, or useless accounts but there are a few who are surely genuine.
All these rewards might not feel like much now but if the steem blockchain continues to develop we might see the price of steem hit over $100 which is a decent 20x or more from the levels we are at now.
Yes you make a valid point that I have overlooked. While I may have missed out on a lot of upvotes from influential members of the community, my stance against the abusers most certainly gained me followers at a quicker rate. I think most people with 2000 followers, who joined at the time I did, have made twice, thrice or even more the amount of posts that I have. So there is yet another reason not to be afraid of you own voice.
I agree with you that steem will exceed $100 is value. Let's hope we both have some to sell when that day arrives-
We all certainly go through this. I was going to through it yesterday as well and ended up getting really mad about the dMania situation. I spent a bunch of time on an original meme but I didn't get an upvote from dMania yet and every time I go there the mass majority of high payout post are just gifs or pictures taken directly off another meme site. I also became mad because I have delegated power to dMania and so has Steemit INC and oftentimes when I look at their voting power it is at 99% or higher. It is like they don't use the delegated power and when they do it is just a copied meme. Honestly I don't get it but at the same time I don't know what they are going through on a daily basis or everything they are trying to do.
I go through it all the time when I create stuff and I think a lot of us go through thinking ......... If I could only earn X amount each day..... and that keeps changing. Like in my mind if I could earn $300 each day then I would be set....... etc........ etc.
But like you I'm a lose cannon over here in a lot of people's eyes. I speak out about too much stuff. Talk about picking up chicks. Tell people that I think the crypto markets are going to go lower.................. they don't want to hear that shit. Oftentimes they just want to see cookie cutter "safe" content that won't piss people off.
But yeah man. I feel what you are saying. Mentally I bounce around like a ping pong ball about the situation on here and my payouts. I keep telling myself to stop it and not spend so much time on here......etc
Hm... sorry to shill, and I'm sure you might run across it on your own in due time, but dmania's rival decentmemes.com is backed by netuoso and acidyo and emphasizes original memes and manual curation. They have future plans for a decentmemes curation team (I think, I could be misunderstanding their original pitch), and might be looking for delegation power in the future. Just something to think about, they haven't rolled everything out yet. I appreciate original, funny memes, and Star Trek and accidentally came across your comment so I just thought I'd give you a heads up for when they do have things set up.
And I'm definitely with you on the strangeness that is steemit when it comes to pointing out obvious things like the price of steem and SBD have been literally falling for months, it's like they want to think that it can sustain a price spike that's been coming from one exchange for forever.
I remember @son-of-satire you defended me when I was new here on steemit. Someone was revenge flagging me just because I expressed my opinion weeks before. Now I hardly express my true opinion and stay away from direct trouble, but I do support with my upvotes some little minnows that do try and say less main-stream ideas, but I watch them barely grow while others that write boring stuff have the support of whales and are earning a lot of $ each day. It kind of takes away the will to post anything......
I remember that too, and I am glad to see you are doing well for yourself on here now. If you ever want to pay me back for what I did for you, do the same for someone else when the chance inevitably presents itself.
What's up? You had a good day- you deserve a break? lol!
I know you are making a joke of it, but yes actually; that's almost accurate. I hit my targets for today yesterday so I'm free from the burden of trying to earn today. Though a break from Steemit does not mean a break from work. Have you forgotten how much I must do this year?
I have not forgotten. But, I do want you to jump on my latest post- my selfish reason for busting your balls, lol.
I'm glad to have connected with you brother. I got your back.
I am with you.
I know what you mean about the rep, money and all being low and not giving any satisfaction, but know this:
As long as you come from a good place, there is nothing to fear.
There're plenty of good guys willing to stick together for sure. Just don't give up and the good days will come.
Besides, the bullies will find something else to be angry about soon enough anyway.
I thank you, but I am not worried in the slightest. I am confident I could have earned a lot more even with sticking to my morals; but I never really wanted money. It makes me weak. But, now I have very big plans that require funding, and so I have began to do what I need to acquire a lot of it. But, I am not naive enough to believe that there is a place for me to earn as much as I will need here on Steemit.
Instead, I am going to use the connections I have made to advance my own projects that are more aligned with my own way of thinking. The point of this post was to show that people shouldn't feel that their success here is dependent of the approval on a few whales, because it isn't. I have proven that-
Good luck to you with your plans, I hope they pan out well.
You got that right. Good on ya.
Ive only read full blog of a fee members. Because if the losing interest in it.but here I've readed the whole blog which motivated me a lot to reach my first goal of 50 reputation .
But people also should.not follow just because they need something back ,in my view the one with the good writing content should only be upvoted & resteemd .
Dammm those tags.. you are cool man!! I was missing this type of personality in steemit..! I thought steemit is just a boring place for some boring bloggers.. now i found someone different! Carry on.. go ahed..
Your post got me in a reflective mood. It made me remember a post I had read sometime ago on how steemit works.
On one hand, I'm not happy that you're not gaining the attention you feel you deserve. It sucks and I know it. But is that reason enough to quit (no one mentioned quitting though).
The more I think about it, the less I want to be undisturbed by the absence of whales and all. I've been upvoted by a whale though but I think something else should hold our attention.
For me, it's an audience to read my works and interact with me. I feel it's the same with you too. It is true that many followers either aren't active or just want some kickback (that's why following me doesn't assure you of a follow). But I refuse to be bothered about all of that.
I used to write on Fiverr. I was earning $5 per post. I left because I felt I was losing my essence. I would devote my soul into a piece and have another have it as their own. It was killing me.
Maybe that's why I don't share your degree of frustration (plus the fact that the dollar has a lot of value in my country)
Abuses are everywhere. Good people are everywhere too. I think you have to make a choice. If not, you'll end up like those folks who all they do is rant about the wrongs on Steemit without contributing anything meaningful.
Blessings
PS: I follow people and comment on posts for recognition. I don't deny it. When I joined Steemit, I knew no one. I had to reach out and following and upvoting is just my style. These days, I don't do that anymore but I don't regret it either.
I must have done a very bad job of making my point clear in this post, for you are not the first that seems to be under the impression I am frustrated. I am not, and the post was about embracing gratitude and finding the bravery within yourself to do what you will at whatever cost.
Are you saying I misunderstood you? Well, I took another go at the piece just to be sure. It was then I noticed this:
I must admit that I didn't consider this in my previous comment. I was engrossed with the 'frustration' that the last few paragraphs passed me by.
I now understand that you are grateful for the experience. I'm sorry for misunderstanding you. Please forgive my error.
Thanks for your patience.
Blessings
The fact that scared of donwvoting has to be considered. I joined steemit Jan this year and hasn't even been lucky at all. I make my introductory post and got .80 and I follow big people that has at least 100sbd on a post and got voting power but to me they are useless and yet I still upvote them with my little 0.004
And I do upvote cos I believe we are to help each other maybe they can see I'm also trying to give something
A whole month went and got nothing until February that I did a contest by @surpassinggoogle . He upvoted the post and boost my reputation and I got little sbd as a steemian
I think you big reputation people are the one that can't be scared of being flagdown but I am scared cos I'm just building my reputation can't afford being flagdown
While I can empathize with your position, it does not appear as though you are able to do so with mine. I, and many others, have put probably several thousand hours into our blogs, and so if a whale or multiple whales decided to flag one of our accounts to the point where our posts become invisible, then we will have had something we committed a lot of time towards ruined.
On the other hand, because I can empathize with your situation, and that of other fairly newer accounts, I can see that if the same happened to you, you would need only create a new account and it would take far less time to get back to where you were at.
The truth is, everyone has a reason to be afraid of flags. I am not attempting to say that this is not the case. I am only trying to communicate my belief that the moment you allow fear to dictate your decisions is the moment you render yourself a slave, and consequently, you resign yourself to a level of being where you now have self-imposed limitations that prevent you from evolving in a productive manner. Instead, you will evolve only to better suit your shackles, and how to better capitulate to the will of your masters.
You should be quite happy with what you've attained, as its more than most people make working 2 full time jobs over the same amount of time, and you were still able to stick to your morals and ethics while doing so. I am sure it was pretty enjoyable as well, at least compared to working at a regular job where you get little personal satisfaction. I feel that it is getting to the point now though, that it is near impossible for most new people to succeed given the concentration of wealth on this platform, and the rampant abuse by some of the whales. Good content seems to get mere pennies, while spammy content that whales upvote get insane amounts. At least you got in early enough to have a high chance of success.
While I am more than just quite happy with what I earned in my time here, I'm not sure I agree that it amounts to the same as two full time jobs. It would have, if I had held it all till this moment, but that was never a genuine possibility for me. I think I earned a modest wage when factoring in the prices at the times of my earnings and withdrawals. That said, you are right that I have enjoyed cashing in on creativity more than any other job I have worked in my life. I feel that this is a job that pays me in more than a monetary sense. In fact, there are quite a few things that I am able to gain from blogging as a source of income.
There is definitely a problem with what gets rewarded. I said I was going to do what I could to help with this a long time ago, but soon after things improved for a short time and I felt it was no longer necessary. But this year I intend to do many things which I started but got distracted or demotivated from finishing, and the initiative I speak of is one of those things. So, hopefully in due time things will be little less shit when it comes to reward distribution.