Happ Steemit Birthday To Me

Hey guys, for any of you who don't know me my name is Johnny, @RulesForRebels here on Steemit. I knew my Steemit Anniversary was comming up soon, but wasn't sure about the exact date, for some reason I was thinking June 17. I actually made a post asking if anyone knew how to find your Steemit account creation date and @goldendawne was kind enough to tell me. She suggested looking on SteemWorld.Org and also said it shows at the top of the eSteem app as well. Thank you @goldendawne for that.

So it's been a whole year, time flies, I actually remember creating my account. Some of my Youtube audience had been telling me to get on Steemit. I had tried Minds.Org and some other similar sites and hadn't been impressed so I was hesitant to try something new. Eventually after a few of my Youtube subscribers being persistant I took the plunge and signed up. I remember the evening I signed up, I believe it was a Wednesday when I created my account. I think it took about 2 days to get approved, I believe I made my first post on the 14th. I remember it was like a Thursday night. During the summer my business partner and I do summer hours and each take a day off so I had the next day off so was staying up late playing around on the computer and smoking a joint. I decided to make my introduction post. I can't find the picture but I think I was laying on my kitchen floor with my hair crazy and put the post in my intro post introducing myself.

I was very intrigued by the platform. I loved the idea I could be paid for creating content and really felt a strong sense of community here. Some of my Youtube subscribers were my early support on here, as well as @brianphobos who I often credit with giving me a warm welcome and helping give me a little leg up to get started, he does that for a lot of people and is a valuable member of this community.

I think within my first week or two I had my highest earning post ever which was like $76 and it was simply me asking a question about how earnings work. It always seems funny to me that after having been on here over a year and created hundreds of posts, some pouring my heart out, others pouring my time and energy into and longform content, I've never come close to making that much or even close to it again.

Over the past year the price of Steem as well as the platform itself has had it's ups and downs. At times I've loved the platform and thought this is the best thing ever. At other times I've kind of said fuck this platform, it's bullshit. I've never given up though, I've stuck around. Partly because I still believe in this platform long term, but more so because of the friends I've made on here and the creators who's content I really enjoy @kenanqhd , @brianphobos , @reseller , @rawpride , @harleymechanix , @stackin , @streetstyle , @robertandrew , @mitchyb , @tolkatore , @lauram , @kokomadeta , @rosargelisperez , @Darrylnyk , @cryptostache , and so many others.

Right now I'm active on Steemit, but a bit tuned out to the crypto space. While I'm still up money and in the green, considering where prices were back in December and having not taken much profits I lost a shitton of money, were talking like buy a house money so decided a few months back to kind of tune out until after summer. I'm not gonna sell at these lows, and I'm not actively trading so I figure why even pay attention to it. I used to follow Youtube, Reddit, read up on cryptos on here all day everyday so it's a vast departure from how I used to be. Oddly enough I don't really miss it.

Part of me wonders if we'll ever see the hype and interest we saw back in December of 2017. While things in the crypto space can change fast and skyrocket fast, I can't for the life of me figure out what we would need to drive that type of hype and mainstream attention again. I think were looking at a slow, steady continual growth for the next few years just like the stock market and other more traditional investments. I personally don't expect to see 7000% gains like we were last year.

Because of the lack of excitement and hype in the cryptospace, that's translated into a lack of excitement and activity on here as well. I've heard that from a number of people, most recently I was talking to @emmyem84 who has only been on a short time and was doing incredibly well, but only posts about once a month now. She told me she's kind of lost faith in crypto and thus kind of lost interest on here. I've seen similar things happen with a lot of people I used to enjoy following.

That kinda makes me ask the question, can Steemit survive even if crypto as a whole kind of loses Steem? Personally I think it can.

Anyhow, I digress, I've gotten a bit off topic and am kind of rambling now.

Anyhow, it's been a year, it's been a fun year, I've made a lot of great relationships, consumed a lot of great content, made a bit of money, had some fun on here. I'm planning on sticking around for the long haul and am curious to see how this platform grows and developes and changes. I look forward to continuing to consume your guys content and wanted to thank everyone for a great year.

Johnny