Something a lot of people tend to forget about social media and a potential strength of Steem is that instead of just screaming out into the void and pushing whatever happens to be on the mind, there is the chance to look behind the curtain.
Killing the human
When Facebook started, it was about friends and social network, which meant that people already knew each other before engaging. They went to school, met at a party or something but, there was some kind of relationship already in place. This evolved however as the circles got larger, new media platforms started and, the 'connection to strangers' began.
What this led to was a loss of personal connection and a ramping up of personal branding as the link to the online identity and the real person was broken. No one knew each other anymore enough to see the gap between the two points. People's highlights took precedence because, why would you talk to strangers about low points and boring details. This meant though that the person behind the content was lost.
Reviving life
As I see it, Steem is a way to close this gap again, to put the person back into the content and a chance to reconnect relationships between more than just the facade. This isn't about losing anonymity necessarily though, it is expressing more than just the surface, to show some of the thought process behind a piece of art or, a glimpse into why one believes the life philosophies they do. Rather than whitewashing the reality behind, fill it in with some color.
When it comes to 'traditional social media', it has been engineered as a platform to sell products and concepts, not connect people. For the other platforms, they are not looking for personal, they are looking for mass appeal, they are building groups of users who can peddle the goods of their real clients, advertisers. What I mean by this is that their social network is about social proof to drive sales, not actually a relationship between people.
Not the others
Steem can be different. Steem can reconnect humans to humans and still offer the opportunities that the other platforms offer without losing the person in the process. This is the value in decentralization as instead of engineering connection for marketing purposes, the people can organically develop markets. It is a much more free market system because people's preferences can start being developed by the people themselves. To do this however takes people to be people.
Sounds familiar doesn't it? People are people is generally used in the negative when bad behaviors are ubiquitous and there is plenty of it on Steem. However, it can also be used for all of the beauty that is inherent in humanity and the fact that we are hardwired for social connection and cooperation. Society is our strength, not our weakness but we have allowed the engineering of humanness out.
Rather than show who and how we are as people, we hide our true selves in order to appeal to the unknown masses on social platforms that are anything but social. Rather than form bonds with people who are interested in us as who we are, we connect to people who are interested in us as the product we portray. And then, we wonder why disconnection, disenfranchisement and depression are on the rise.
A new model
We have an opportunity right now to not only change this process and reconnect people to the content they produce but, take economic advantage of doing so by building the communities that care about those within. Rather than have 'scream into the void' communities and wait for the echoes, we can develop them based on personal connection.
This requires that the who and why is behind the content and this is something that so many people are forgetting in their blog posts. Everyone wants engagement with their content but they aren't thinking about what people are actually engaging with. For the most part, people offer a consumption experience, not a connection experience as if there is no feel of a person behind the post, there is no engagement necessary except to eat and move on.
You, not your identity
Again, this isn't about revealing everything and pouring emotions onto the blockchain as that is actually disengaging for the most part, it is about revealing intention. You see, most people are here for the money, not building relationships and this is why they hold back the person behind component, the honesty. They engineer a persona they feel will meet their monetary aims and of it doesn't work, create an alt with another.
People drop their posts devoid of humanity and expect people to choose to follow them and offer consistent support without recognizing that people support content once but, people consistently. This is also why the chat channels are so important as it is in there that personality behind the posts is often developed. The expectation that great content is enough is one built on illusion.
Long relationships
As said many times previously, the strength of Steem as a platform, a currency and an economic model is the community itself and the strength it can develop is dependent on humans, not algorithms. Algorithms can go someway to limit abuse but can't close the gap much to developing relationships other than pulling into the eye line.
Unlike Facebook where the relationship came first, for the most part on Steem we start off as strangers with no connection. We are all on first dates trying to find people who we want to spend larger amounts of time with. If you imagine who you might want to spend your life with, it isn't their clothing, it is the person wearing it. The one who makes you laugh and will sit with you while you cry. This takes depth and it takes revealing some revelation of character.
Empowering people, disconnecting authority
Rather than try to engineer Steem to be a decentralized version of other platforms, it could be a decentralized economic and social network that empowers real people to form real connection and community based on real preferences rather than those of the marketing teams and centralized authorities.
This is my view of potential on Steem as it differentiates Steem from the rest of the social market and segments it out from the rest of the economic market also as it is a model driven solely by the community. To do this, it takes most people on the platform to rethink their approach here and start to question why thy are here and where they want to go. As said, most people are here for the money but in my opinion, they are going about it the wrong way.
Rather than working together to build a community that is made up of many differentiated communities built upon people who have similar interests and paths, people work as individuals who brand themselves for the masses. Decentralization isn't to create a mass to market to, it is to bring out the value and uniqueness of the individual and provide that person the opportunity to live as who they are, not what will sell.
This place is what we make it and if we treat it as if it is like everything else, we lose what sets it apart. We lose Us.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
Disconnecting authority. LOLz.
Nothing is easier to use for tracking, profiling, silo’ing, and connecting the dots than an immutable fully transparent blockchain. Combined with the data gathered from other platforms or with other tools (Steem-apps using Google Analytics for example)... reputation management is going to be
schadenfreudea beeyatch for many who now think they’re anonymous.And hopefully won’t bite others just as hard in the bottom cheeks.
Steem is an alternative economy and we are seeing always more initial steps towards “reputation management”. Whether that be oracles or the more anonymous User Authority... you are what you say on here and rather sooner than later recruiters and HR departments will have also this profile data for you.
Because... spin up a node and thanks for the data. Forget about the fish.
That isn't the disconnection from authority I am talking about here. It is the content drive of centralized authority that makes people behave in certain ways. Having decentralized control over apps, interfaces etc means that there is the ability to continually evolve without being forced into various boxes. This will mean that there will be more discourse between points rather than dictation.
That will not change.
Decentralized “control” will evolve the same way Web2.0 (user generated content) did.
What Steemit is now and also in this post was blogging 2003-2009 (2005?).
History repeats itself and the internet isn’t different to that. It is even easy to state that until fiduciary duties came in play Google, Reddit, and Facebook were our biggest defendants.
Two companies alone mine 60% of BTC, with how much Steem is on market how easy do you think is it for those who want to burst that “decentralized control” bubble?
But I know what you mean and I fully agree. This place, like almost every other community (online) is what we make of it and will mean to us what we make its value (to ourselves).
Yet, let’s stay fully aware of realities and not be surprised once again. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was a non-scandal/non-event since long known since 2013 (2012?).
The idea to reveal oneself by the thoughts, written words and connection is the best thing to do.
Being online is a privilege, joining a platform is a choice and then becoming the core member of the community is work often backed by promise.
Either you do it or you don't.
Pretty much. Many don't do and hold expectations of being where those that did, got.
I just want to speak on this a little:
I think this will achievable if we can get rid of the spammers and bots(I've used one of those). Honestly, I believe there are more bots than people on steemit and this might end up ruining this platform. We need real people interacting with other people. This platform was made for humans and not robots.
'identity' and 'personality' are somewhat similar. Well the former deals with how you are perceived, the latter is who you are. One can be fabricated, the other cannot. Like you mentioned, this is one of the issues on social media today-- people are trying to portray an imagine and not their true self. Steemit can reconcile both. As interaction on this platform and it's subsets allows for a more personal touch. Unlike other social platform, steemit doesn't ride majorly on trends. This always the expression of thoughts as it's not patterned by trends.
There aren't but, there are more alts and inactive accounts than active users.
I don't see identity or personality as who we are as both change over time and often, significantly. People identify with all kinds of things, their personality changes with the winds of experience. If we change, are we still us?
yes both change, but I think an identity can be engineered, just like banning it has to do with public perspection. whilst your personality can change given your knowledge and experience, its more generic. I might identify with a certain group or concept today to change people's perception, but my personality is a reflection of my inner self, irrespective of what might happen within there will still be certain level of coherence in my behsvioural pattern, well, expect in cases of traumatic events where an individual's core/essence is scattered.
Estoy de acuerdo en que steemit pudiera convertirse en una plataforma mas alla de los intereses economicos. Desde que comencé a participar he buscado algun tipo de conexion que vaya mas alla y me permita ver al otro a través de lo que escribe; quizas con la esperanza de que podamos construir algun vaso comunicante que nos permita salir del anonimato estilo facebook... ojalá podamos conseguirlo seria edificante.
(I agree that steemit could become a platform beyond economic interests. Since I started participating, I have looked for some type of connection that goes beyond and allows me to see the other through what he writes; Maybe with the hope that we can build some communicating glass that allows us to leave the anonymous facebook style ... I wish we could get it would be edifying.)
I think in time, Steem will develop in many ways that allow more users freedom to use it as they would like. More apps and interfaces will arrive as well as revenue streams.
I haven't even thought about steem this way before but it is so true. I certainly feel a lot more real here on steem than I've felt anywhere else
Please let the theme song of this post be Depeche Mode's "People are People."
The key refrain is "People are people so why should it be, that you and I get on so awfully?" LOL.
I think this is a marvellous post, as not only does it unveil the hidden truth about how Steem actually works, but it also offers Steem a USP to distinguish itself from Fakebook. :)
Many are looking to monetize their content without actually having to be there in the content at all. Again, this isn't about revealing identity although, many will eventually.
Well despite every effort to be anonymous, gradually people will reveal who they are and funny they might never realise that they have done so. Steem isn't the only blockchain technology product in the market, there are several and some of them are into KYC and ID and stuff. With time, it would take a little forensic investigation to put 2 and 2 together.
That being said, a blog is supposed to be a platform where a blogger can express his or her preferences, hobbies, thoughts, desires and postulations without worries. They might not directly bring out their personalities in their post but believe that one way or another, their personalities will seep through and soon without seeing a name, you would be able to identify a blogger's content without seeing the name.
Yet, leaving a signature or imprint of yourself on Your content is worth doing. It is fair for everyone involved, especially those meeting you for the first time, to be able to identify what makes you tick. This gives you humanity and no too human is the same even if they agree on the same ideas.
I have written about this before that with a half decent AI, most people are revealed relatively quickly.
This is what I mean. This is the person in the content, not a name.
Yes.
“it could be a decentralized economic and social network that empowers real people to form real connection and community based on real preferences”
I took 6 months or so off from social media, including Steem. I’m not back on any of the others, but I came back here because there is a sense of community, albeit virtual/online.
Like someone said in another comment, it reminds me of the early days of the blogosphere. And indeed, I think old-school blogging is making a comeback, just like old-school newsletters, e-zines, and email missives are also starting to become the preferred way to connect with your audience/customers, instead of broadcasting on social media.
Great post, it is always important to question yourself why you here on Steemit. The economic side is important but the social aspect too!