Name Dropping and Scanning Games

There were around 300 Steemians in Krakow, and I think I met almost a third of them, but hanged out regularly with about 15, and had meaningful, longer conversations with maybe 5. My aim was never to meet all 300, or to meet as many people as I could, quality over quantity, always. I’d much rather get to know 10 people better, than to talk half a minute to 100 people.

The official Steemfest app had a function where you could scan the badge of a person you were talking to, so you can later check their blog out or find them, without having to remember everyones names. It was a great idea from Roeland and his team, but because people are people, I think most used it for the wrong reasons.

There was a competition to see who scanned the most people, and a time limit, so you would have to wait 2 minutes if you wanted to score. Though what I noticed from some people was that they put on a timer for two minutes, and then talked to someone else close, and when the timer went off, they came back for the scam. I mean scan, what a terrific Freudian slip…

Before the scanning competition was even announced, the first night some people were just running like headless chicken, trying to scan everyone without even looking you into eyes, and definitely not wanting to have a conversation. There were a few people like that I actually refused to scan because of that. I have no interest in collection names for the sake of a competition or, to just collect names to my phone. What is the point in that? It’s like collecting Tinder matches without ever talking of meeting anyone. I have no need for people like that in my life. You either wanna talk to me for real, or stop wasting my time and go away. That being said, most of the people I talked to, were also not interested in the scanning game, and just wanted to have a real conversation.

I have trouble writing a post about the people I met and actually had a conversation with at Steemfest. I had a wonderful time with friends, new and old, and I feel like I really connected with a few people on a more personal level. If I were to write about every encounter I had, the post would be 10000 worlds long and no-one would read it. There is also the trouble of where is the line between public and private, I know a lot of people are not as open in the blockchain as I am, and I respect their privacy. I also believe that having a one-on-one conversation is by default, private, even if there are 300 Steemians in the same room.

Then there is the fact that some people don’t want to be associated with my image too much, not my words by the way. I’m the girl who does nudes, and they are doing something important like developing apps or big into community support things, and don’t want to seem like the guys that just upvotes the naked lady like a horny teenager. Which I of course think is fucking bullshit because I myself don’t care what other people think, if I like a person, I like him/her and couldn’t care less about what other people think of that. But I do understand in a way, and they are people who need the support of some big names and the general public to make their projects successful.

I know some people just tagged everyone they saw/scanned/talked to in Steemfest, with not much description, and I think that is just useless. I’d rather not tag anyone, because the people I talked to, already know what was between us. The one-on-one means much more to me, than showing the whole blockchain who I talked to.

I was going to start tagging some people in this post, but apparently I’m just gonna talk about talking about people, and leave the actual talking about specific people for some other post. I will eventually do it and make sure I tag the people that had the biggest impact on my Steemfest experience this year, because I think they do deserve the attention and recognition. Some of them I already consider as friends and have swapped information with to keep contact outside of the blockchain, which is always my aim.