Out with the old and in with the new!
I have been working on the internet for years. Taking advantage of social media platforms and advertising to people. Weather it was through creating websites that rank well in a process called SEO(search engine optimization) or hard sales through the back end of Facebook,Instagram (which can be extremely profitable!) I was always on the happy side of the payout. I hardly ever used social media as a platform for myself other than business. So, recently when I started wanting to share more of my personal thoughts via podcasts, interviews, discussion and write ups on our personal website (http://arcanebear.com ) I quickly realized something.
"The most important part of the social platform is the people. It always has been, just like our governments are really only supposed to have any power cause we give it to them, social media is the same."
The first thing that really pissed me off about Instagram was its total lack of user functionality. Your pretty much forced to use whatever they give you, its not geared towards people who want to share high quality posts, in fact, it makes it quite difficult to do so. It wont allow you to upload from a computer, so if you have any camera experience and photoshop, its been made an ordeal. Already with @thearcanebear I have been soft banned from using hashtags that don't fit their particular interests. Noting that they have banned random hashtags like "EDM" or "Kansas" I hate restrictions. Obviously we think to ourselves, oh, its to stop spammers. Couldn't they just ad a captcha instead of banning entire ideas as spam. How have I become the bearer of the burden of this social platform I asked myself.
Sometime's having to email myself a photo to post!! Are you kidding me, What year is this?!
I was baffled at their severs extremely slow upload times as well. Having tried multiple times to upload a video of only 15 megs on a ripping fast connecting only to see it fail, and the post and all its writing and filter options. GONE! An hour wasted on a 1 minute video. Absurd! F&$% You Instagram.* Oh, But look here, sponsored ad after sponsored ad. So here we are, again, bombarded by advertisements while Instagram makes all the profits. We are the value of Instagram, we bring all the users, we bring all the content and media, yet. We get nothing in return. There has to be something better I thought to myself.
Ah HAH! I thought to my self. I remember something called Steemit! Our love here @thearcanebear for cryptocurrency and all things rare and tangible exploded into euphoria!!! How had I known about this social platform for the last few month and not even stepped into its domain. I took a half sip of my fresh coconut from the shell and signed in, logged on and here we are. I am addicted.
Sweat Equity,this is genius. Having started a few companies and working with multiple talents and skill levels, this makes so much sense to me as a contributor. It covers all the basis. Its partially the same way I feel about music festivals. Here the owners and promoters go through a great deal of work to align a space, co ordinate bands, vendors the works, yet, without us. Their venture is worthless. Yet,year after year, hippies and business men alike crowd into these mainstream events spending hundreds of dollars to enter and leave. There are likely very few people who would go to a music festival if they thought no one would be there, regardless of the music, talent or venue.
There was a great Penn & Teller episode on their series named "Bullshit" where they wanted to show the general arrogance and willingness to conform the masses had. They would ask people they just met about bands they would make up on the spot like "the circle jerk bum f@!$s" or "poop in your teeth" With these obvious fake and absurdly pushed names they proceeded to ask the people if they were excited to see them perform the next night. Without fail, the masses replied how excited they were, how they had been waiting for this so and so band to play tomorrow. Its an amazing experiment, and you can try it out for yourself small scale. Now obviously they were looking for kids around the age of 20-25 and focused on a demographic who was more likely to act like they knew, instead of say, what the hell are you talking about....... I digress....
This leads me to Facebook
Facebook started off in a great place, myspace wasn't very user friendly and MSN messenger had no idea they were most likely only a few code lines away from being the big thing. At least in my opinion Facebook is much more user friendly than Instagram and offers the user a palatable experience that allows friends, family and business associates to communicate in a simple manner. But somewhere along they way, it broke, social media started to break the souls of the people who use the platform. There are many studies that show receiving likes, shares and comments is almost as pressured on the saritonin and dopamine receptors. I actually quit using both of these social platforms over a year ago before deciding I wanted to man the helm of The Arcane Bear Its been a most wonderful experience to dive in with a loud voice, cursing the political memes at the top of my internet lungs. I am so grateful for places like Steemit for allowing us the opportunity to try something new. Working on forging a new place in our digital lives. Making the ones and zeros even more valuable.
Our Conclusion
Every individual is generally looking for the same things in life. Respect, Love, Gratitude and Honesty any mix of these has us jumping head over heals to meet the people that offer us these rare feelings. The Steemit community is offering these things to me. I can do nothing more than humbly express my love for this unique idea and share it with all my fellow humans. Its time we brought the power of ourselves back to the centre of government, politics, monetary control and our own social expressions. Censorship and bans will only prove to create more problems; like that of prohibition of alcohol, only creating a worse bootleg outlets, or like the total failure of the drug war. Instagram, Facebook and Google are trying to convey what is real and what is not. Its our job as a community to teach and practice critical thinking and inform one another as kindly as possible to new avenues of discussion.
This is a new home for my thoughts.
I am so thankful to be able to share them with you.
Tijo~ The Arcane Bear
http://arcanebear.com
I guess the next best thing to do is share and promote Steem / Steemit on those platforms ;)
Exactly!! My friend has over a million followers on Facebook and Instagram, for her art and travel content. Our next article is going to be titled, Can a minnow move a whale? Been sharing with her the ideas of free markets, crypto currency and the like. She has already joined, Check her art out at. http://fayehalliday.com
Totally agree, the more people know from Steemit, the more will join us and see the beauty of our platform! (Don't mean the current UI lol)
@fayehalliday minnow moved a whale nuff' said
Follow > Upvoted > REsteemed
Couldn't have said it better ... We are making history . . . here Kudos
I totally agree! I have done SEO for years, charge hundred of dollars an hour for consults but am also sharing all my infor for free with the #steemit crew so we can rank as best as possible, check out this article on how to rank your website or your steemit articles! Thank you so much for the love and support!! https://steemit.com/steemit/@thearcanebear/how-to-rank-your-posts-in-google-and-earn-more-money-with-steemit-pt-1
hating? really? lol man. Check your own thinking if you want "love gratitude community" but start with hate.
All those services have a shitton of users, some are wonderful, some followers are amazing, some people are all love. Some are assholes. Same with steemit.
Steemit is groundbreaking and has potential to be great..if it gets as big as any of those, in 5 years people will write about it what you just wrote of FB. Let's be real.
The difference between literal and figurative speech: Literal language means exactly what it says, while figurative language uses similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification to describe something often through comparison with something different.
Also FYI: a bear will kill to protect its young, so perhaps how you view "love and gratitude" is different than mine, our love will kill to defend its space. :)
Nothing wrong with a little difference of opinion though , guy.
While Steemit is a great platform, people are people. There are trolls, spammers, bots and just bad people in general, just like any social media. Don't hate the game.
None of my comments had to do with trolls, bots or people! it was all about the platform and the company, the user interface and being constantly bombarded with advertisements, and how in every social setting, we, the people, regardless of if you are a shit head asshole or not. are the power and the wealth. thus, we should be rewarded for it!
I agree. FB and IG just profit from free works done by people, besides causing anxiety and depression in them.