Why the Steemwhales are upvoting Crap instead of Your Masterpiece - And why you should be Happy About it
So you spent six hours carefully writing and re-writing your deep analysis of something important.
You scoured the internet for the most eye catching, royalty-free stock photos. Agonized over each word in the title. Meticulously analyzed and ordered your tags. You sent your pride and joy into the world and then refreshed manically for the next hour, responding diligently to each and every comment. You have done everything right and your post is Steemit perfection.
One day later, you have 48 votes, 11 comments and a $0.33 payout pending.
Your Steemit wage is $0.04/hr.
Yeah. That's a banana.
Tired, irritated and fighting an inexplicable urge to start crying, you scroll through the trending posts with jealous eyes and growing anger. Anger bubbles into rage at the sheer injustice of it all. $1000 for a baked coconut shrimp recipe. $3000 for a picture of a mountain. $5000 for going hiking in Tahiti.
$10,794.56 for "Hi, I'm Kyle" and 646 words writing about writing about Bitcoin.
Who is upvoting this crap? You curse the Gods of social media and open vote list after vote list. The same names keep jumping out at you. @ned @dan @dantheman @berniesanders @smooth @kushed.
It's like opening your school yearbook and seeing every page filled with pictures of the kids that stole your lunch money.
That sucks.
Who are these clowns? And why are they using their Steemit super powers to bestow wealth and fame on breasts instead of brains?
I'm sure you're a nice person. Smart, articulate and full of amazing ideas about how to make the world a better place.
But if you spent 10 hours writing an 18,000 word Steemit post you didn't spend 10 hours doing something fun and interesting. You are probably not the life of the party and your circle of friends is small and tight. Like a sphincter.
Yeah, that's you. I'm the water. Sorry.
Social media lives and dies with herd. If you're with the herd, you live. If you're not, you die.
The herd wears a bikini and goes hiking in the Tahitian jungle.
The Steemwhales know this. They know this because they are smarter than you, which is why they are Steemwhales and you are not.
Probably a Steemwhale.
Out of the 30,000 people using Steemit right now, there are exactly 48 that are interested enough in an analysis to click your button and 480 people that are interested enough in bikinis to click her button.
See what I did there? The bikinis generate 10 times more engagement, probably have 10 times more friends than you do, probably spend 10 times more time on social media and will probably tell 100 times more people about Steemit. Truth.
The Steemwhales are doing you a favor.
Your deep analysis of something important is not going to bring the herd stampeding to Steemit. Steemit needs bodies. Lots of them. Right now the universe it telling you that out of 30,000 people, 48 think you're cool enough to hang out with. That's like 0.16% and means the community values your contributions at about $0.04/hr.
If you haven't caught on yet, let's wrap this up: the bikini's tell their friends who tell their friends who tell their friends and suddenly there's 300,000,000 people here.
Now you're cool enough to hang out with 480,000 articulate intellectuals that get all hot and bothered over your deep analysis of something important. Your wage is $400/hr. You're welcome.
You at $400/hr.
Stop whining about what the Steemwhales are doing and focus on creating awesome content while being awesome to everyone else creating content. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the stats say more beholders like bikinis, hockey players, surfing, pot and packing lists. Realize that ultimately Steemit will recognize and reward brains and breasts alike, but right now it needs to scale as rapidly as possible to survive.
No go write something that makes you smile!
#steemit #blog #motivational #tutorial #newbie #expertise #travel #whining #life #word #whalecall #life #philosophy
@dan is a whale because he is the creator of Steem software. He's a great programmer and a blockchain architect, but I don't think he's a social media growth guru.
If you look at other whales, many of them are just miners (mining doesn't make one a social media guru, FYI), or just bought Steem with BitShares.
So I think your post is an unnecessary rationalization.
Things are probably much simpler in reality: Steemwhales upvote pretty much the same stuff normal people would have upvoted (because they are people, not marine mammals), so it works more-or-less well.
Dan is smarter than me. Much, much smarter. There is no universe in which I could create things like Bitshares or Steemit. Not going to happen. The miners are also much smarter than me. Set up a miner? Yeah, also not going to happen. So they are all rich and I'm not because they are smarter than me. I'm can cope because I'm probably better looking. If I squint.
If you read Dan's work on social justice and non-violence you might be surprised at just how astute he is when it comes to how society ticks. I think the entire architecture of Steemit is absolute social media genius.
Now all that said, the majority of whales are dudes that are computer programmers that just made a shitload of money and are now Gods of the newest and hottest social media platform and everyone wants to be their best friend. So you're right, so very, very right.
holly shit, so true :O
I know, right?
Talk about beaching a whale lol @johnsmith keep the truth alive #word
Added #word. Because it's awesome. And so are you.
That ass crack.... like the San Andreas.
Thank you Sir, will definitely follow and comment going forward - appreciate the feedback @johnsmith
Cheers!
Are they trying to drown him!?! I don't think he will stay a flout.. Can you drown a steemit whale?
That is an excellent question. I don't think so, but it would be interesting if somebody tried. I'd watch.
damn.
Though I have to admit the steemwhales can all learn a bit from the community as the community can learn from them, you do have some damn good points. At least I can say that although I do little things like "fuzzbombs" where I upvote lists of people who are participating in conversation, I definitely upvote a cute girl doing makeup and other things for precisely the reason you say---they get eyeballs which means they bring eyeballs here. And yep, that does mean everyone who thinks they are getting the short end of the stick actually does benefit from the people she brings.
However I will take it one step further and say that we need to help people realize that all the people in their networks (irl or on the inet) have great value and if they all join because of you and upvote your content (that you wouldn't get paid for at all by other social media btw), you all will get paid.
At first it is not much, but one thing I will assure you is that in the 2+ years that most steemwhales have spent (not even talking about out of pocket expenses) making the tech available, each person who joins steemit today could at the very least become a formidable great white (not to mention an army of great whites by their sides).
The power is in your network as much as it is in your content. Steemit actually enables you to empower yourself by empowering others who trust and value you. Name another social network that can do that!
@johnsmith, you will likely do very well here and I don't say that because some might think you are ass kissing. I am saying it because you seem intent on stubbornly producing good content. (By which I mean I laughed a good bit and ended up realizing that one point you made was salient--keep trying and as more users come we will build more strength together).
I cannot speak for all whales, because I am kind of a baby whale I suppose, but I will say that I am very interested at this stage in helping upvote projects that help steem. So if anyone who is upset thinks they have solutions lets talk! If not--go back to facebook people, where you will never get paid anything but will be censored and seen as a useless idiot for Zuck to suck on.
;)
There are so many great people from Bitshares here! For those not in the know, Fuzzy is a legendary contributor to the Bitshares project that helped develop the tech we are all enjoying right now. Respect. Thank you for your kind words. It is an honor!
And then there's "Zuck to suck". I don't know what to do with that.
lol thanks @johnsmith. I am indeed a bit crazy in my interest in the idealism (and brilliance) behind bitshares. This is actually the main reason I stuck with BitShares--because the founding fathers would cry if they saw a blockchain with actual separations of power built in.
That is why I stubbornly hold on. I'm so glad for steem and steemit though man. It is going to be great to watch this new graphene chain show the world what the tech we all sacrificed so much for can do ;)
wow @berniesanders you have officially hooked me up on that upvote.
I still think you are better (and more effective) than the real Bernie Sanders though :P
Well now, let's not get carried away. I had better pics. ;)
Upvoted. The pectoral fin is unusually well developed.
More to the point, the herd wants to see someone in a bikini hiking in a jungle - not a guarantee that any of said herd would ever leave their desks to do that themselves.
I think you're right, that those of us who aren't possessors of Vast Social Networks and relentless marketing skills (targeted content, promotion of said content) (and good looks don't hurt) aren't going to make a living here.
I'm not hot, I don't smoke weed, and my capacity for writing about stuff with limitless hyperbolic enthusiasm is, um, limited.
At this point, I think I'm going to "park and ride." I have Steem and I have Steem Power and I'm watching the value rise. Great! You guys go for it! I'll sit and profit.
But... No, I'm not going to spend 18 hours creating content for $0.00. As you say, you could almost start extracting a psychological profile of the whales by this point, and I'm sure that savvy marketers are coming in and doing just that.
Good comment, thank you! I think I'm right too, but I'm slightly more optimistic about the long game.
In the meantime, what if you could spend 18 hours curating content for $400? I think there's a place for everybody here, and curating is probably the thing that will make or break Steemit. So go forth and vote!
so you say, its better to comment and upvote, than to post content that needs 10 hour preparation because by upvoting and commenting is a better chance -right now- to earn?
Willy banks is doing pretty well for himself right now.... ^^^
Basically if you're not so impassioned by your work that you don't care about the payday the best thing to do is curate and comment. Eventually you will start writing. Guaranteed. Or your money back.
holy shit
this one is so hilarious
haha
that makes us stop thinking and put us out of the world for a short period of time.
lovely
Well. Are you happy now?
I'm six redbull deep and have developed an inexplicable and extremely inconvenient twitch in my left brachioradialis. My right brachioradialis seems happy, though.
Where did you find that photo of me in a superman stringer?
You have very white teeth. All I see is your teeth.
Dammit man, did you have to pull that card? I can't stop making eye contact with the kid. And the guy's teeth are still white.
Let me comment with some crap and get a lot of upvotes so I can skip my #introduceyourself post and make a big load of Steem Dollars. What about a picture of a weird man with a watermelon helmet I just found on google
And maybe this is the way to do it! Be weird and funny. Since this is the first image when you search "weird pictures", a lot of Steemians would like it.
Let's congratulate me!
Congratulations! Upvote!
Is it as good as you thought it would be?
Nope. Damn it. Only 2 people laughed at my post. But it's cool, it's just the beggining. I'll prepare a funny post.
That's four more people than if two frowned at your post. Carry on.
You should be a mentor on that! haha!
Math was never my thing. But I can do smiles!
Will you be my whale? haha!
Would you settle for a mackerel?
Welcome to the club!
Thank you! The floor is kinda sticky though.
It will be a while until we get that extra large tank, full of fine water and great assets