THE STEEMIT BOTS, HUH (I made this BOT animated gif remix)

A FEW THINGS that inspired this piece of art:

The use of BOTS has arguably ruined organically growing reputation / rewards on steemit for community newcomers that are said to be "minnows".

I've researched the subject; seen the videos, read the articles (I'll spare you the links) about how "minnows" can get a jumpstart on steemit by buying votes from "whales" and I am seeing most the posts on "trending" are from those that "smartly" use bots or have used bots to grow a following.

I've noticed the "Promoted" posts as well but feel that should be reserved for commercial ventures and not to promote the "minnow" community-centric media makers, such as original tunes, memes, and art.

Maybe I'm looking at this whole thing incorrectly, but this is what I am seeing.

I hear the 'reward pool is 30% sold with 50% to be sold in the next few months'.

I see the "copy/pasting" accounts that follow MASSIVE amounts of community, that then get followers in return... Why this?

As a cautious content creator; a goal of mine is to simply create content / value for the community and then the follows and rewards will come naturally and based on my works merits. Is this a naive pipe dream?

Do I really need to follow 8888 people and spend hours commenting on others posts to build my account to THEN have the honor to gain my own reputation? No serious, do I / should I?

Honestly, what are my choices to compete with those using voting BOTS?

As far as I know the word "BOT" only appears in the STEEMIT FAQ in reference to " @cheetah is a bot developed by @anyx that scours Steemit for copy/pasted content. Cheetah will not downvote copied content, but it alerts other users to look into it further. "

Seeing things like "reward pool rape", "flag wars", "voting bot" scams (or tactics) has me wondering if I really should share my hard work on this platform so I have been cautiously optimistic and going about this slowly and organically...I started to get my feet wet creating memes and testing a few apps like dmania, dlive, dtube, and dsound...

YEAH, Don't even get me started on the whole "DMANIA DRAMA" ... Although I did enjoy my time on that app making original memes, I was disappointed yet again by all the underhanded games going on over there to garner attention and rape rewards. I noticed the disrespect from the steemit community at large about the "low-effort" of memes and that was discouraging as well from an original content creating perspective as its hard to gage where all the hate and low rewards was coming from. Just don;t like memes, dislike @zombee, or apparently you have to write 500 words on your post or you are damned to be "low-effort"!?

As an aspiring original content creator (goofy multi-media artiste) I'm having this sinking feeling again that I got on other social networks; It's the cheaters, snakes, mass follow spammers that get the attention.

The steemit community seemed different to me and although attractive is going along just like the big-name platforms; promoted content, sock-puppet accounts, or VOTE-BOT-cheating (for lack of a better term), is the name of the game.

Alas, unless I promote this post myself on said (evil) social networks, pay for it to be promoted here, or use some other scheme (voting bots, prostitution); I realize I am just writing into my decentralized personal journal, doomed for obscurity.

STAYING POSITIVE - YET KEEPING IT REAL:
I'll be keeping my eye on you steemit, I'll keep developing my own style here too, and will keep my mind open to a better future for all steemians; minnows, whales or crabby-assed bottom feeders like muhself.

I'm open to comments and feedback.

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Attribution: @realstyle original media remix
Media Source:
wiki bot
Date: 24 May 2015
Author Esopebot