The ONLY Thing I Don't Like About Steemit!

This platform is so much more positive and, more importantly(!), constructive than YouTube that it is really winning over my heart at a fast pace. I truly believe, that YouTube is, in a way, a good representation of what is wrong with our society right now. People attacking other people without any regard for the other persons' feelings and without contributing any sort of value.

I think it is important to stress, like I did in my post about how poisonous YouTube is, that I can’t wash my hands in innocence. I played online poker professionally for 8 years and I was a little shithead during the early years. I would sometimes lose my cool and say some horrible stuff and when I look back at those days now, it’s almost like looking back at a pathetic version of myself.

Eventually I got into coaching poker too and that’s what made me eliminate this sad behaviour. I did not want to risk having a student or a potential student rail me and seeing me act like that and thus, I bettered myself.

With that being said, I would not ever want to take away from that aspect of Steemit: the aspect of positiveness and support, so I am hoping that everyone reading this post will understand that the following is meant to be constructive criticism!

The one and only thing I have not liked about Steemit so far is people trying to “exchange” a follow for a follow. I’ve seen it be done in a variety of different and creative ways but they all boil down to the same thing and I don’t like it one bit, because I think it can potentially hurt the platform in the long run. It totally takes away from genuine appreciation for people’s contributions.

A hot looking girl who comments on my post: “Hey, I loved your post about your trip to Colombia, keep em coming and btw. follow me back!” Would love but no can do. I think hot girls are awesome and I really like them but I also like getting it on with my girlfriend and the odds of doing so severely diminish if I like you back!

Someone who is running a blog about cars might be interested in reading about my adventures in Colombia but that doesn’t mean that I’m interested in reading about his blogs about Lamborghinis. I can barely tell the difference between a Lamborghini and a bike, much less do I want to read about it.

“Hey man, awesome post about your trip to Colombia, I followed you, follow me back @lamborghinisarethebestmethodoftransportation…

It shouldn't work like that and it shouldn’t have to work like that, because what goes around comes around in the most unexpected ways:

• @lamborghinisarethebestmethodoftransportation left that comment on my post about the moral objections to interviewing a serial killer and ends up following me because he has seen Narco’s on Netflix and is intrigued by my stories.
• @guineapigsarebetterthandonkeys has left a funny comment on the same post. She has the cutest picture of a Guinea pig as her profile picture and I decide to check out the account. It’s amazing! There are all these videos of her guinea pigs getting her beers from the fridge, doing her dishes and playing volleyball so I follow of course. Who wouldn't want to see that?!
• @dirtbikesarethebestmethodoftransportation has also left a comment on my latest post, which the guinea pig girl ends up reading. You wouldn't have guessed it but she is a huge dirt bike fanatic, so when she is reading my reply to her comment and happens to come across this guys' comment, she decides to check out his profile and follows him.

I know what you’re thinking now! Dirt bikes, Lamborghinis… He is about to fill the circle! But we are not there just yet, because the dirt bike guy (his name is Jimmy btw) hates Lamborghinis with a fucking passion! Someone in a Lambo cut him of one time and ever since, he can’t see a Lamborghini without going into absolutely mad. To calm himself down, whenever that happens, he likes to paint his girlfriends nails when he gets home, it’s very soothing for him… One day, he is trying to find tips on steemit for nice little patterns that he can paint on his girls' nails the next time he sees someone in a Lambo and it turns out that it's his lucky day!

• @nailpolishisthebestformoftransportation just posted an awesome blog about flower patterns and Jimmy doesn’t know how fast to click ‘Follow’ and now yes, we have arrived.
• @nailpolishisthebestformoftransportation has a well kept secret that she has been able to hide from her boyfriend. She LOVES lambos, in fact she lost her virginity in one! So when Jimmy is at work and she is catching up on Steemit, she comes across a quality post from @lambosarethebestmethodoftransportation and decides to follow him. After all Jimmy doesn't have her steemit password anyway...

Unlike when I had followed the lambo lover in hopes of having him continue to follow me, he is now actually getting an upvote from the nail polish girl when he puts up a hilarious video of his dog behind the wheel of the Lambo he rented (rented because if he owned it, he wouldn’t be begging for people to follow him).

I’m going to give one last and more serious example to try and build my case a little more and hopefully actually convince some people.

I made a post 2 days ago about the possible moral objections to interviewing a hit man, which Angelo and I did for our YouTube channels. One of the comments was very constructive and intriguing to me personally. The comment was made by @south-paw (who btw I asked for permission to use this as an example). In addition to the comment he also added a link to one of his blog posts that was closely related to this topic and that had a very fascinating title: https://steemit.com/news/@south-paw/cognitive-dissonance-can-a-whole-country-suffer-from-it

If he had left it at that, I would have read the article and I would have followed him because he writes about stuff that, after having been in Colombia, I am very interested in. But then there it was: Follow me… In Amsterdam we have an expression for this type of thing: “Throwing in your own windows”. And that’s what this was. I made a rare exception and still decided to read the post, which was great and which made me want him to post more and made me eager to follow him. But I would never normally do that after seeing a “follow me” or “follow me back”. In this case I made an exception and I’m glad I did because he is nice enough to even let me use it as an example in this post, but you get the idea!

Hopefully I was able to get my point across. Organic growth is the only valuable growth. I really believe that if you make valuable contributions to this platform that your potential fan base will eventually find you. “Valuable” is the key word tough! I put hours and hours into my posts and when it’s clear that someone has taken her or his time to write a well thought out constructive reply then I make it a point to try and write back something of value, hoping to build an organic and loyal following that way. I have faith in myself and so should everybody else who takes this platform seriously!