With a heading like this you know I'm going deep into analytical territories.
sorry for the blur, but rest assured, those pics which arnt blurred are trending posts of sweetssj
Trend I say
greetings and salutations to all steemians, I've been working on a few projects for a while now, how to get a youtube channel running, how to set up a streemian accounts and all that stuff, I even downloaded the esteem app, and its quite fun and enjoyable.
But this isnt a review into esteem or my personal works, this is a post talking about the continuous and never-ending trends which;
@sweetssj
seems to always do.
But why!?
Ever since I joined steemit, and even before that , I knew who sweetsssj was, as I assume most of yall like me already did.
plastered on the front page of any newcomer to the steem community, you'd most definitely run into a post by sweetsssj boosting no less than $1000 in sbd.
This may seem normal to the average steemian, but then you have to realise that;
she is neither a programmer,nor a developer on steemit, she didnt come in as an investor, neither did she come in as a moderator, she doesnt work as hard as @pfunk or @abit does,
Yet she is most definitely one of the highest paid authors on steemit.
@papa-pepper pales in comparison to the amount she makes on a weekly basis.
The spell
I dont know whether it was sheer luck or a calculated strategy, or a likeability im yet to uncover, but there is one thing for certain, @sweetsssj has a spell over the top guns of steemit, and that spell isnt going away anytime soon, I mean take a look at the pic below;
with a list like this, no wonder she trends
UPVOTES
With over a thousand upvotes, and definitely more than a hundred resteems, we start to see the reason why @sweetsssj may be the richest steemian on steemit(ok @dan, @ned and @ben are undoubtedly way richer, but come on, im talking of average steemians).
Another major important thing to note about that picture above is the fact that the @blocktrades account, the official blocktrades account and the;
sixth most powerful and eight richest account(worth $5m+)
also seems upvote as well, not only that, but @abit, a top witness is also on her post, and seems to be giving a 100%
this of cause is probably due to interaction with the community over the past year.
THE GOOD, BAD AND ANNOYING
The truth about this is that sweetsssj has become a de facto ''face of steemit'' , being instantly recognisable on the front page or on the trending page of steemit. Her posts also pulls in a lot of money, which is essentially used to showcase to newcomers the possibilities of using steemit to make a living.
BAD
Despite the fact that her posts pulls in a lot of cash, this may in fact bring a bad reputation to steemit, The average steemian DOES NOT make even 1/8 of what she makes. She is one of a lucky few who makes quite a good buck from steemit, while the average users make peanuts. This is exaggerated by the fact that she's also a traveller, in essence just posting pics of her trips in scantly clad outfits or irrelevant locations(honestly how many of you remember the places she went to last week, dont lie, y'all are just voting for the curation rewards).
Annoying
The fact that sweetsssj travels a lot does not make her the only traveller!
Other people who travel have good stories to tell as well, but unfortunately get left behind while the majority run towards sweetsssj in order to gain the curation reward. Others such as @firemeibegyou, @infidel100, @milanademort also posts about travel once in a while, so its always a good idea to promote great travel contents whenever you see them, not necessarily only looking for sweetsssj.
Now Im not castigating sweetsssj, she's been on steemit a long time , and now reaping the fruits of her labour, continuously posting for months on end, while other slumbered. 7000 posts, including comments isn't something to do in a day, and I appreciate her efforts to continually move forward on steemit.
In fact, its ALWAYS a good idea to promote great contents whenever possible, dont go looking for the leaders or top earners in a category, don't be lazy, source for great content, people source for your works as well.
Pardon my chinese, but
支持好內容. Thanks
If you have conflicting views or feel that my views are wrong, drop in on the comment section and lets discuss, I do all these to make steemit better for you, so it becomes better for me to help you help me :)
I don't auto-vote. It would pay to do a little more research before making posts with false information.
fixed, sorry bout that, its currently past midnight, must have missed that part.
Will you start taking Dubaicoin ?
You have been upvoted and maybe even resteemed by @vsteems!!We help minnows grow by upvoting and sometimes even resteeming them!!
If you want to say thank you in a way please upvote this comment and maybe our vote be worth a whole bunch someday and maybe it will help you! Thank you.
thanks, but I think it is all good in steemit, if one material is so good, then people will vote on you based on that and so as other whales will notice as well. The curation system will also motivate others to do so. So for me, I get over to think why but to focus how I could write better material which I could really contribute to Steemit and that would mean more upvoting for me as well.
This is why I love Steemit. you will always get up vote if you keep on putting good material, just a matter of time.
yeah, good material,. . . . . but also materials related to the community, many dont care about the fluffy cat that needs rescuing, many just want to get posts that bring the biggest instantaneous payout, which is so sad, nobody is building connections, most new users dont connect
This is ok. Because the intention about steemit is never about whether i like the material or not, it doesnt matter because the larger group of the audience will judge. For those who want to get paid instantaneoua payout will find themselves stupid, because who is willing to devote time here will like get the last laugh. With so many new users coming in everyday, why you worry about those who would quit like 5 days because they are thinking the different things?
true words mate, thanks for understanding, steem on!
To be honest, I seldom go to trending page now. and I wonder how much I am going to make from curation of Sweetsssj's post with all the big whales' big votes there.
I have to said I admire Sweetsssj's effectiveness of creating posts, if I have to create posts with such quality, I think I can only make one post per week.
ha, well it comes from practice, and making many mistakes along the way, shes good for sure, nd yes , trending is so depressing, especially for noobs like myself
Interesting
quite interesting isnt it?
by the way, https://steemit.com/steem-help/@luzcypher/how-to-lose-friends-and-irritate-people-two-big-mistakes-you-want-to-avoid-making-on-steemit, I think @luzypher was talking bout you :)
Wrong
I don't want to dissapoint you, but you don't have to come into Steemit as a investor to became someone.
You can be anyone. If you are consistent, smart, attractive, posting quality content, you will succeed. And @blocktrades upvoted recently one of my post. I joined Steemit 14 days ago and I am looking to be damn consistent.
You shouldn't be jealous on other succes, learn from them & keep focussing on your work. You need to work hard to achieve something in life :).
Thank you so much @blocktrades, you made my day!
O no no no, you got me all wrong, i dont give 2 cents what you make or whatever, im here for anothwr purpose entirely, when making the decision to open this account, i made sure i kept the line between critism and as*holic shitposting clear, im nit gonna engage in petty scwabbles with anyone here, thats for sure, i pist and move on, as long as people have seen my post, and get my message.
Im consistent too, infact i actively look for things that "grind my gear" on steemit to post about them.
Many feel im a hater, well poo if thats whats on your mind, i do my own, and if anyone tries to bait me to a fight, ill ignore.
Hating on success is one thing, wanting to know why a person who makes 1000+ everyday from traveling is another. New users will see this and run into steemit, becoming dust that upvotes these people, thinking theyll get upvoted themselves. Thus leads to a cycle where new followers come in and go upvoting straight for the big fishes, giving them more and more money, i assure you , majority of the people vote because they know @sweetsssj post will hit, NOT because they care about her content.
Because you have the right to speak for everyone who votes for her? Did you ask all the people that vote for her? If you didn't, then you are making unsubstantiated claims based on zero factual evidence.
If you want to put together a coherent argument, then you can't say things you don't have the facts to back your argument up with.
What you say is true alright, but in the real world, things take a different turn. I assume most people on steemit are like me, average in everyway, trying to make a buck or two.
In the real world, zipf law takes over, the top minority earn the highest, and the bottom majority earns the smallest. People are naturally attracted to success and since curation reward is also at stake here, it is highly probable that people will vote and comment based on;
Dont forget the old saying, the rich get richer
I would be willing to conduct a poll on this though, it would be for a future post, thanks for the idea.
The fairest situation is everybody makes the same. The reward pool is paid out equally to every user.
For argument's sake, let's say the value of that equal share is 1 dollar.
If any user makes more than 1 dollar, that means someone is making less than 1 dollar.
People will try to increase their share by external input. In the real world, and Steemit included, this means building a following, contributing, being engaging etc.
Everybody has the same platform and same opportunity to do that.
If people want a situation where everybody earns their "fair share" then nobody will be attracted to posting because the rewards will be capped regardless of their effort.
The only situation where your logic can hold, is this exact case.
By allowing zilf law to happen through decentralised voting, the "market" is deciding on who wins the lottery and by how much. Everybody agreed to this when they signed up, and everybody would rather have a 1/1000000 chance of hitting the jackpot, than knowing that one never exists.
I never said you are a hater, but you can't say ''she is neither a programmer,nor a developer on steemit, she didnt come in as an investor, neither did she come in as a moderator, she doesnt work as hard as @pfunk or @abit does''
This is total wrong. I got your point that everyone is upvoting to get rewards but I think you said it wrong.
I fell also is something wrong here with all those ''sexy girls'' who just upload some pictures and put the tag ''introduceyourself'' and they are making more than I made in 2 weeks.
This is how Steemit works, unfortunately, but if you are consistent in few months you will find your audience.
Cheers and Good luck man!
Not to mention that sweet has some of the most amount of comment engagement on the entire platform. I upvote her because I like her content and I know from arguing with an imbecile earlier this week who also baselessly tried to defame her, that many of her followers including me stood up for her.
It's simply not the case that people only vote for her because of curation rewards. She has a genuine following and makes genuinely good content.
This davidthelad fellow refuses to acknowledge the amount of work she puts into her posts, or her contribution to Steemit over the course of the year, simply because she blogs about travel instead of runs a VM somewhere occasionally loading up scripts to check blocks are being found. (Meanwhile getting paid something like 1600 Steem a day).
His arguments are simply illogical and baseless.
You can't create a fair system where people can still trend. The very nature of trending means it is not fair to start with.
Yet, he is unwilling to accept the contrary and only solution whereby everybody is rewarded the same regardless of the quality of content.
I acknowledge that this has to happen in fact a perfect and fair situation is next to impossible, human input makes that task impossible.
What isnt impossible however, is the ability to be unbiased.
Always trending isnt normal, same way always winning in a casino isnt normal, or a footballer winning the ballon d or every year isnt normal. There may be better people out there, better than sweet at writing, better than messi or ronaldo, but the system, rigged to recognise popularity more than talent, creates a path inwhich only a few enjoy the benefits.
Football is a bigger topic of which i cannot currently influence, but the one i can(steemit) i try my best to influence. A system tending to lopsidedness will eventually collapse as the dust gets frustrated and leave, while the whales powerdown and leave. A hole forms and everything collapses on itself.
Always trending shouldnt be encouraged, im not sayings she shouldnt trend at all.
Of cause all these are just words, trending isnt an automatic system, it depends on votes and other criterias, so until people learn to source for other good content instead of running to hers, she'll always trend.
Also the post you replied to talked about what you essentially said,
Facebook and other social networks are an example of a fair system. You post something and you get nothing. Everybody gets nothing. The money goes to facebook. Facebook created billions of dollars of value essentially collateralizing the work of all their users and selling it off to advertisers.
Always trending IS actually very normal. Bill Gates has been the richest man alive continuously for the last 20 odd years. He is a perfect example of someone who leverages and uses every competitive advantage he has to maintain the lead. Still, it doesn't matter that he isn't the best programmer, the best businessman, the best investor. It's the fact that he set out on a path at the right place and at the right time. Not only that, he continued to carve out his path moving forward.
Sweetssj's competitive advantage comes from the fact that she joined very early. So, that has allowed her to build up a large following over a long period of time. This is something that takes considerable effort and should never be overlooked. Because again, if it were, then we'd just go back to the "fair system" which you now understand is not what we want.
Capitalism succeeds because the people who hold the most amount of stake in a system will be incentivised to act in such a way that benefits the system and therefore their own stake. People have seen sweetssj post consistently regardless of rewards for a year. She is a reliable public figure to support, one who is not likely to take the money and just leave. On the other hand, new users who have yet to "earn" their reputation struggle because they haven't had the time to build their following. It now rests on them to do so, and fight for their chunk of the pie.
All this bickering STILL basically boils down to one thing, which is inequality. You cannot bare to see someone who has invested more of their time into contributing to the platform than someone else who has just joined but posts equally good content. You fail to acknowledge the importance of accumulating followers , trust and reputation. Instead you jump to conclusions about how this and that isn't fair and at the same time dismiss the only solution to fairness.
That's how the world works...