So there it is, you spent two hours writing a post, you've checked the spelling, you've done your research, you are getting ready to hit POST but right before you do, you check once more. Twenty minutes later you have two comments from different bots, a spammy account something generic and unimportant, so you know what you need to do... BOT IT UP!
Anecdote Incoming
So I know about this guy who started more or less at the same time I did. He unlike me bought about 2k of Steem from the begging of his journey. At that point in time I was holding close to 200 SP in my account if I'm not mistaking, so to me, he looked like a whale. Of course this was long before I understood how this whole thing works, I was merely weeks into this little journey and the idea of having that much on a crypto wallet sounded as difficult as climbing the Everest naked.
My little story begins right with the introduction of the controversial Upvote Bots, the hardfork had just happened (unknown to me of course) and this facilitated their birth, if you will. I kept on seeing this one account making crazy money with the posts he was making. To me, a plankton that would jump on one foot if my post had more than 1 SBD, seeing constant $80+ payouts was mind boggling.
I would read the stuff, why not? it was pretty good, I would even laugh every now and then, but I always felt a bit uncomfortable leaving comments next to the spammy accounts and the bots with their quirky tag lines. You've been defended by a ninja, still sounds cheezy, funny, but cheezy none the less. So leaving a comment on a ground filled with rocks was something that never felt right. I did however eventually leave a comment or two, why not? testing the waters if you will, and I did not get a response, so I stopped.
The posting continued, the payouts kept on being up there, but the SP of the wallet was not growing all that much. The constant power downs where the reason, but back then I was probably not that familiar with the exact dynamics of it all.
Many months went by, the posting of the account stopped being as consistent, effectively the author, which mind you was/is talented stopped feeling motivated enough to pump out content. Singing for an empty bar can hurt one's ego and I'm quite familiar with that feeling myself. All of the sudden, the account stopped posting. Just like that.
What happened?
Speculative Meno says
That as much as many authors on this platform enjoy seeing some big numbers at the bottom of their posts. As much as they love the idea of making tons of money with their intelectual currency, this wealth if you will, is not entirely fulfilling. It might be to some, but to others I'm sure it feels like empty hotpockets empanadas.
My good friend Cope(@mfxae86) wrote a post that to me really sheds some light in the dynamics at play here.
Yes we might want financial success, but in a disposable era where absolutely everything wears a label of expiration, we are starving for human connections, and I would say even more so that we are needing "money". All of us, including yours truly would like to feel as agents of relevancy, as people that contribute if not to society as a whole, to conversations of value.
Why would we spend so much time thinking about complicated subjects, if it was not to share our ideas? What would be the reason then? - Ok, so I wrote this thing here, I think its great, it really explains how this and this works together and possible sheds some light on to the dynamics of our polarized society, great, this is great... now... let me put this on a piece of paper and stick it in a drawer.
Of course not, nobody does that, so why are we spending out time, wasting our time, lying to ourselves about this whole thing? Are these self bought trophies a replacement for human connection? Are these somewhat isolating behaviors a vaccine against emotional needs?
I submit to you the possibility and of course I can only speak for myself that none of these feeble replacements for human connection work in the slightest, maybe they offer a short term bump, like a line of cocaine (or so I hear) but they are nothing that makes us go to bed feeling relevant and filled with purpose.
I had a great day today, I made this post about how I think we should tackle global warming... I put all the good ideas in there and then... I upvoted it with bots to like 300 and the bots left me all their beautiful comments... I had this guy tell me he likes the pictures, which is great because they are not even mine, and that makes me feel good... this other guy told me he resteemd my post, which is also, like also awesome because I checked his profile and he didn't, but he is trying to win my favor and that feels great
Ok, Ill stop
I'm being a bit jerky today, but that's just because of @silentscreamer's recent post. I'm trying to maybe influence a few people out there to be the change, and I'm not saying that because I'm some crazy idealist, I'm saying it because we need it, we, us, humans, we need to be better than this.
We need to relearn the value of human connections, retrace our steps back to the moment we let greed and the fear of living in scarcity take over our minds. We can be better, I've seen it too. So here, my message is for you. If you just got here, if you've been here for a few months, gosh... if you've been here a year and you are tempted to succumb to the mentality, to the "If you can't beat them join them". This... is your loving slap in the face...
Other posts by yours truly
• Join me Tonight for Songwriter shop Talk featuring @melavie
• The value of short form Content
• OMG ITS OVER!!
• My mother has jelly
• You can't do it alone - You need Communities
I really enjoyed your post @meno.
You know, one of the cool things about being so involved with listening to music from Open Mic is I don't have any time left to get sidetracked by all the other drama going on in Steemit.
Debates about bots and such escape my attention as I'm too involved with communicating with actual people on the platform.
My two cents is simple. The only place value comes from is from people. Sure, a bot could hit that upvote button but is that real value? Depends how you describe value I suppose.
I did a post a while back about a guy who got over 12,000 followers by doing the 'follow me and I'll follow you' thing. His posts make less than 1 SBD and illustrate how empty that approach is.
I'll stick to communicating with real people sharing real thoughts, opinions, and music and whatever reward that makes I can know it was earned authentically. Trending for being 'fake' is nothing to feel proud of.
that is the real wealth Senpai, the connections we made.... like a silly funny man said on the twitter machine... in the end, the real bitcoin are the friends we made along the way.
If that's true then you're going to the moon, my friend.
P.S. - I didn't know we couldn't live eating just candy. Didn't get the meno, @meno. Hahahaha!
Boom 💥
Also @edibersah... thank you for proving his point.. well played sir.
hahaha he did, didn't he? hahahahahah <3
It made my day actually 😂.
I’ve been a bit fired up lately as well. To be honest, sometimes you have to step on some toes or even hurt some feelings to make a real change... at the end of the day, somethings need to be said 🔥
Who's gratitude?
Oh I see... awesome I'm going to celebrate today, thank you very much for participating of this conversation with me.
@baah.. i am drunk... will you marry me? I have a basement and a lawnmower.
Omg... a lawnmower, I always wanted one!!! please take me instead of baah... I promise I will sleep in the shed
Wait! Me! Pick me! I NEEEEEED a basement.
For things... and stuff... and .... it's a secret! You wouldn't understand!
I think I got it, sorry... you inserted yourself into a conversation between me and LLfarms and because of the lack of context, it might seem different to you. LLfarms and I are good friends, so the heart at the end is almost a signature really. I sincerely love her, as a friend thus almost every sentence I write to her has a heart in the end.
If you are referencing to the account she is referencing to, meaning that I made fun of someone being kind, that would be valid, if that someone actually read the post. The Sincerity database ranks that account as human but with a big percentage of SPAM meaning that its an account making these comments most of the time fishing for upvotes from people.
A quick look into their comments you will notice this is the case most of the time, but because the account holder is not a native english speaker, I algo empathize with him/her (no idea).
Within the context of the "fake connections" the "fake flattery" the "oh this is how you play the game, you spam and you make money" @llfarm's comment is probably spot on. A little insensitive, maybe, but that assessment would be valid if the person she is referring to even cares.
maybe because they've been warned about the spamming? I dunno.. its ok Baah I think you and I are going to be best friends and smoke some hash eventually. This is working out awesome
@baah, are you going to f'n marry me or what? It's rude to make me ask twice.
@baah says he has manners, so he will respond soon, don't worry.
Well I like it like that.... like full frontal.. i wanna put you in my shed and feed you with a bucket because i love you... thats what i wanna hear.
First, let me say thank you for trying to call out an injustice... the point of this post was let’s have a real human interaction, possibly more than a bid bot would give us. Sure, you may be right.. maybe ediberah actually did read the post, found value and was showing his gratitude in the way he knew how. If that is in fact the case, well then my apologies. But let’s be honest, the more likely situation is that he made a spam comment that could have been put on any post and was hoping to get an upvote... he didn’t really say anything having to do with the post at hand to make me think otherwise. Maybe this is the twilight zone... where human interaction just simply means great post... I thought the point of the post was to do a little bit more, sort of like how you are. Here we are having a real human interaction, we may not agree... but it’s clear we are truly interacting.
Did I tell you today I love you, my dear friend?
Nice post, upvote me.
Greatness is at the heart of quantum facts
Facts are at the heart of quantum greatness.
heart is the quantum of great facts
Great facts are quantum <3
Say not what can quatum do for your facts, but what you can do for your quantum.
Say not what facts can do for your life, but how quantum can make you feeeeel... for your life.
Baah humbug
Why is everyone so bearish lately? I am super bullish! hehe :D
tip: I stopped watching trending page long time ago... I'm happier now. I even started posting again :D
tip 2: SMTs... SMTs
tip 3: EOS... xD
tip 4: smile :)
there is some FUD in the works, but its just people with money trying to buy cheaper.
:)
I have to admit I don't remember what the actual post was about anymore but now I would like to have a puppy, a cookie and a troll too.
hahahahhaha yes!!! that is what life is all about!
With your anecdote I suddenly have a flashback of my own golden shitposter who posted 5 post a day and was just two copied paragraphs + 1 image of a Marvel Superhero.
I stopped commenting and following him when it was apparent he was just making it as placeholder posts for bots and I looked at his prfile now Rep 67 although his SP is almost 3k as all the SP he got from the bots but no engagement.
He wasn't looking at building something he just wanted to selfvote and cash out.
short term thinking, looking for the high... that's all
Interesting post, thank you for sharing. Warm greetings from a height of 1300 meters.
I second a lot of the things you said, I also get discouraged by the lack of actual human interaction on here. After all if Steemit wants to become a social media even better replace other social medias like the annoying FB, it has to be one thing: social. I don't care about the generic comments of bots and spammers but if I don't get a single comment from over 500 followers, then either something is clearly wrong or I don't belong here anymore.
But of course you know I'm going to agree... well I was asking for more human interaction and this post of mine broke a record, so I'm on to something here.
I think people thinking of the $$$$ tends to blind them a bit. They forget about the reason why social media sprouted in the first place. As you said, it was because of the "social" aspect, eliminating that is eliminating its core purpose.
Hi wow, great picture, much esteemed sir! Can you please evaluate my function and upvote my comment?
Thank you, good sir!
:-)
Can I play with baah now?
@upvote & resteemit
Done!!!
Well, if it was human interaction you were looking for, you got boatloads with this post! Haha. 😂
I say we can do better, what do you say? lets argue... I think strats are better than les pauls...
prepares for the battle
I actually also prefer strats. Maybe we can argue next time?
hahahahhahahaha
On a slightly related note... I finally got around to making my first openmic post. It isn't my most stellar performance, but I finally got one under my belt and look forward to doing some more.
that is awesome... i will check it out of course (i listen to all of them)
Very good bro, a post to reflect!