Creating Culture Is The Best Promotion
While there seem to be differences in opinion over the future of Steem, it seems clear that it has been chosen to be the horse the control structure is betting on, and that the vast majority of people who believed in Steem for so long now carry on on Hive for good reason. I am glad that Hive exists and we took a stand. We want to remain in control of our own social network, to see it become a mighty factor in the world of social media in the long run and to make it as successful as can be woith what we can accomplish in our works.
But there are many things we can learn from on our time on Steem so as to be better prepared for the future; to seize the opportunity of the recent upheaval to improve what we do here and how we do it. To integrate our experience from Steem into this new home.
One of these lessons is that Steem has long been somewhat of a closed system.
There have been many times where an online search on a controversial subject would actually make a great steem article pop up, just because it has been so thoroughly crafted and consisted so many of the peculiar details that are easily censored on common social media sites like fb and twitter.
But that's about the extent of it - most things written on Steem have been read by other Steemians, and I think it's fair to say that most of the things created there did not make huge waves on the outside.
Many people have been calling for "improved marketing", for making a concerted effort to promote the idea of Steem (and now Hive) to the people out there fed up with the dinosaurs of social media that regularly give the finger to their users.
But where Steemit has never really delivered in marketing or successful waves of onboarding, and where most efforts by individual users have been small and limited we can now use the opportunity we have with Hive to draw in insane amounts of people who want to create quality content. We are ready because this place exists.
How do we get the ball rolling?
By creating culture.
Where is all the culture?
We want to see Hive succeed so it is only natural that the arts should get to it and make it immortal and to create an aura of attraction to those out there on the search for a better alternative.
We might be up against the coordinated marketing efforts of the gang who may promote the hell out of Steem for their own purposes in the near future, but then the people attracted by "100 days of Steem challenges" and shallow posting habits are not what Hive needs so there really shouldn't be a problem that the gang does what it does. It seems like this might be a great opportunity to actually have people join Hive for the right reasons if we emphasize the importance of quality on here by leading through example rather than continually dumbing down the blockchain experience with shitposts on "trending" and all the other past shenanigans.
Hive needs to morph into the major hub that carries on the energy of its inception - care, dedication and wisdom. the experience that the mistakes on Steem have taught us so that we may create something more profound and more quality-oriented.
Culture seeds corner stones and creates endless multipliers for any project, and with any worldview, interest or idea there will inevitably come waves of culture in the form of music, art, poetry and works of creativity that not only use the new medium to communicate but moreso to communicate to others on the outside about the medium.
Since we have seen how no single entity or company can be asked to make a project successful and just trust them that they will deliver, the task of making Hive big will fall to all of us now, creating the kind of radiant artworks and projects we want to see, drawing ever and ever more people to this forefront of social media and to help new people who mean it in earnest get a leg up on here who may just be joining these days. It's a glorious time to be doing so now before the waves of new people arrive and this place will become busy as a hive of bees in summer. Consistently.
The term and branding of this project already lends itself to a great many ways of playing with it from a culture and meme standpoint. The hive, the collective mind, the tireless work, the golden & tasty fruit of the labor, the adaptability to new circumstances and the ability to cope with changing situations. Perfect conditions.
I fail in doing the above, because I am writing about it. Writing about creating culture is precisely NOT culture, it is a circle-jerk of confusing the former with the latter. But a call to culture creation is needed on this blog regardless because I think it is what is often overlooked. This place must not only be awesome to those already here, it must be worthy of being checked out by newcomers who are looking for a new home online.
Speaking about actual culture creation though - I have started writing a song about Hive and will do my utmost to get it recorded as soon as I can. Might not be the best track ever but I just want to help fuel the hive doing what I wrote about above.
Let's create the vortex of attraction that brings not only new people here - but the right people. Like attracts like.
And once artists and proficient media shamans, knowledge seekers, craftsman, journalists and all other skilled and dedicated people stumble over the richness that Hive radiates it will be a glorious time to welcome them here.
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