When I joined facebook, I did it because of the trend. I had a business and a freethinking group to run; networking was important. I also didn’t give much thought to the whole thing. It was an easy way to connect and keep in touch with people. With time though, things started smelling funny. Facebook was slowly invading my personal life.
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Surely, it was nice to see some food pictures shared, maybe a pet here and there, jokes, memes, the classic political debates and of course my group meetings. Facebook became my swiss knife — it had everything in one place.
I became solely absorbed in organising my page while in the background many of my group members were trying to feed children with likes, protest about important issues from the comfort of their couch, fall in love with fake online personas and pick up fights with people they wouldn’t dare to talk to on the street.
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What really got to me though was not the hypocrisy and the masks people were wearing. It really shocked me how much time people were spending doing absolutely nothing for themselves other than fattening Zuckerberg with shekels. Apart from the usual entrepreneurs and businesses, most people were becoming zombified in an endless circle of reassurance. They provided the material and the time, getting nothing in return other than an inflated ego. It was like watching a slave factory mining page views. An eternal internship for a massive corporation. I nicknamed them “The Networking Dead”.
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I slowly muted all of my friends’ newsfeeds. I started cleaning up my friend list and it wasn’t late until less than a dozen made it. I used to have thousands of people as friends and followers and I could have used them to ...monetise, but the whole thing did not feel right. They were not even real people to me. I could hardly associate with any of them — in my personal life or the group.
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They were slaving sheep, strolling left and right for attention, aimlessly looking for confirmation about the new selfie, the new piece of clothing, the sexy partner or the tinfoiled theory about how much the world sucks. This charade did it for me. I stopped paying much attention to the group because most of them were really a lost cause, and just tried to appear as “edgy” freethinkers. I was part of this scheme too. I had to get out.
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About a month ago, I began transferring material that I had written over the span of 5 years. The plan was to make my own personal blog. While I was in the midst of doing this, I discovered Steemit. The rest is history. I never looked back.
@kyriacos
I'm glad to listen to your story and you decide to leave Facebook. The same happened to me. It took me 1 year to realize facebook is not for me.
I think many of us in here share a similar experience. Soon many more will realise the potential of an alternative platform that rewards users directly.
If it's free you are the product.
exactly @projecthor
this is value! thanks @kyriacos. I shared it on my fb page lol! :)
@cristi
oh the irony !
If I spent a fraction of the time I wasted on Farmville on Steemit, I'd be sitting pretty. Though I'm getting there the past few weeks :)
@vegascomic
Imagine if you spend it in actual farming. You could be a ripped farmer exporting goodies all over the world.
Sorry it took so long to respond ... I was laughing too hard at thought of me farming :)
Or online scrabble, haha! I know exactly how you feel!
I write about scrabble in my latest chapter! ha ha :)
That's deep man . I newer looked at FB from this point . thx
@iggy
Not many have. That's the whole trick
"I slowly muted all of my friends’ newsfeeds. I started cleaning up my friend list and it wasn’t late until less than a dozen made it. I used to have thousands of people as friends and followers and I could have used them to ...monetise, but the whole thing did not feel right. They were not even real people to me. I could hardly associate with any of them — in my personal life or the group."
(sorry, I still haven't learnt how to do that blue quotation thing)
Just have to say your experience mirrors mine!!!! I could have written those words. I have tried posting about Steemit on fb, but zero interest.
@onetree Quoting someone
(sorry, I still haven't learnt how to do that blue quotation thing)
just use the > before the quote, no space on a new line.
then to continue (Not quoting) just hit enter key two times ... to skip one line, and continue your text on the next line
Hope that helps !
Thank you!
Anytime ! hope that helped !
Checking
Does that also work in the markdown editor?
@onetree just add ">" before the text you want to add
It will take some time for people to migrate over here. The biggest barrier I have found so far is the crypto thingy. Most people are scared of bitcoin and know nothing about it. If Steemit finds a way to shapeshift normal currencies from Steem Dollars then the game changes.
Thanks! Especially if you are from small town South Africa. :D
Facebook is the best example of 'If you are not paying for it, you are the product'. Once I realized that, I rarely log on it anymore. The only reason I kept it is that I don't live in my home country anymore and FB seems the easiest way to keep some sort of contact with family and the few friends I left on there. I invested my time in other things...Now with STEEMIT, I spend half the time here that I used to spend on FB and I m actually making a bit of money.
@nulliusinverba
Most people seem to follow this stradegy but I would prefer to stay in a platform like Steemit where I can have some productive time.
There's a quote from McLuhan, or it might be Neil Postman, about the content of the medium of social media being the connectivity itself. And so although many can leverage value from the endless phatic noise of "likes" and so on, really there is nothing there. Is there something different with Steemit? I hope so. I think it because to the money, but then that statement depends on what actually money is, what its value is. If that is merely because of a consensus, or coercion, then underneath the "money", SD, is a consensus, and perhaps because of this a different kind of community can develop here. Has William Gibson written anything about the blockchain yet? I want to use one of his words: liminal, my awareness of what is really going on here is liminal, not well articulated.
@richardjuckes
I am not aware of the author
The difference with steemit is that you make money. really is that simple. You spend the same amount of time and you do the same exact thing (minus the whoring).
Isn't it amazing how much more interesting Steemit is compared to Farcebook. As for snapchat it is just a frivolous waste of time unless you want talk to the kardashian focused dull youth.
@stephen-somers
Yeap. The point is to make something out of it. money is a good measure
I'm still on facebook mostly because most of my friends and family are not on Steemit. Steemit is for the strong. I don't judge my friends and family that don't want to come here. But I understand what you are saying.
@soulsistashakti
Yeap, keeping connections is important. Seems though that with facebook we loose them altogether...
@soulsistashakti to be here we have to create. there is no spectator section on steemit, yet. xo that's a big difference
the art that goes with this is awesome!
The words "Facebook" and "freethinkers" are as distant from each other as "panda" and "marmalade". I never thought I'd see them in the same post.
I don't get all this anger against Facebook. Every social network is a social place. The community decide how to evolve it. Stop blaming him for "making you a product".
You're a user. Steemit can live just because you're here. Are you a product on steemit too?
I agree about Steemit being better than Facebook. That's because Steemit PAYS you. And you can be whatever you want here. You can bring useful contents, funny contents, and being rewarded. Some people are leaving their job to live on Steemit.
I totally agree on that.
But blaming other socials is not the right way of promoting Steemit. Not in my opinion. They're just different things. You can monetize on Facebook too, you said that by yourself, but they're different platforms with different goal.
Steemit is more open, probably, yeah ;)
This is a great post. I view facebook as an evil that is slowly losing it's necessity. Part of the problem is that the average content, from your average user of facebook, lacks substance. My problem with fb is the censorship issue and the control that they have over a persons profile. I made a scathing review of an episode of Ink Masters from Spike tv. No less than a week later, I got a notice that I had to change my profile name or upload ID with my user name.
The great thing about steemit is that it promotes community & great content from people that are really creative. I'm only about a week in as a user, but so far, I LOVE it!
@luminousvisions
But you still get to make money