Introducing Humans of Steemit - My New Project To Bring Personal Stories to You and To Share Steemit With The Rest of the World

Hi friends! I am beginning a new project designed to share people's stories and market Steemit at the same time. It is called "Humans of Steemit" and was inspired after "Humans of New York". Here is the project:

I will walk up to strangers and ask if I can take their photograph and interview them. I will then tell them about Steemit and tell them that if they want, their interview can be posted on my blog on Steemit. If they are willing to do the interview, I will tell them about how Steemit works and offer to give them half of the Steem Dollars that I make from their interview post on two conditions. The first condition is that they make a Steemit account themselves. The second condition is that they share a link of their interview post with all of their friends on Facebook. I have created a facebook account for Humans of Steemit in order for them to tag the page and verify that they did indeed share the link with their friends.

The main ideas behind this is that users of Steemit will be introduced to some amazing life stories. Additionally, the people that I interview will be introduced to Steemit and hopefully share Steemit with hundreds of their friends via Facebook.

I have created a facebook page at facebook.com/humansofsteemit. I will create a "teaser" post for each interview that I do, with a link directing people to the full post on Steemit. It looks like this:

For my first interview I did not pick a stranger, but rather my brother. This is because I wanted to do a test on how to model the blog post in order to show the strangers that I walk up to an example of what their interview could look like. In the future, all of my subjects will be strangers, and I will strive to interview a diverse group of people. I am currently located in the Bay Area, so these people will mostly live in California. However, I do travel a lot and will continue this project while traveling to other countries in the hope of spreading Steemit and sharing even more diverse stories.

I believe that one of the beauties of Steemit is that it offers people a place to be genuine. I have seen some of the most popular posts on Steemit be stories where the author was as open and honest as possible. I think this is because we are all searching for and value true human connection. I hope to bring some more of those authentic voices to Steemit in order to foster an online community and add to the value of sincerity that so many authors have already created here.

On the last note, this is our community, and your voice is part of it. I am open to any comments or suggestions on how to model Humans of Steemit. Please send them my way!

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What am I thankful for? You know that question is really hard because when I first came to the United States, it was like “I am thankful for family of course”. The thing is that when you are in an orphanage for seven years, you don’t really know how to love. You don’t know how to feel what at all the other people feel. So when you don’t know how to feel that way you can’t really be thankful. When you’re adopted family gives you so much love, you still don’t take it because you don’t know how and when you’re barely keeping afloat you don’t want to hurt them, so you just say "I'm thankful for family". But what you're scared to say is, “I don’t know”.

Interview

Me: If you could ask a single person one question and they have to answer truthfully, who and what would you ask?

Billy: For me that’s very easy, it would obviously be my birthmother. The question would be: “Why did you give me up?” That's not the main question I want to ask. I want to ask: “What led you to the point that you had to give me up?” “Was it society that lead you to do this, was it because you couldn’t support me?” That feels like a much a nicer question than just asking: “Why did you leave me?”

Me: So if you had the chance would you meet your birthmother?

Billy: It’s on and off but yes I would. I think it is a chance that not everybody is willing to have but I think I would be willing to have it.

Me: Are you ever angry at your birth mom?

Billy: Yes and I think the reason why she gave me up could be a bad reason and it just hurts all the time and when it hurts, you’re angry.

Me: What hurts?

Billy: The fact that for whatever reason she left me. It hurts that she will never watch me grow or she will never really understand where I am. It’s painful to realize that she gave me up and she will never know what’s happening to me. I could be dead. I don’t know if she is dead.

Me: What are you most thankful for?

Billy: What am I thankful for? You know that question is really hard because when I first came to the United States, it was like “I am thankful for family of course”. The thing is that when you are in an orphanage for seven years, you don’t really know how to love. You don’t know how to feel what at all the other people feel. So when you don’t know how to feel that way you can’t really be thankful. When you’re adopted family gives you so much love, you still don’t take it because you don’t know how and when you’re barely keeping afloat you don’t want to hurt them, so you just say "I'm thankful for family". But what you're scared to say is, “I don’t know”. Because when you say “I don’t know” you’re going to ruin that relationship. What’s funny is obviously I know in my head but in my heart I’m taking this for granted. I think it’s one huge fat question mark: I don’t know who I am. And how am I supposed to know who I am? I don’t know what’s around me, I don’t know.

Me: What is your favorite movies of all time and why did it speak to you so much?

Billy: One of them would definitely be The Hours.

Me: Why did it speak to you so much?

Billy: Because each character was depressed. People are taking a lot of painkillers because they don’t want to be in their pain situation.

Me: And why do you think people get into a pain situation like that and how?

Billy: Living situations. It all depends on society.

Me: And how do you think your society is?

Billy: Around my peers we are not mature so we tend to look at difference as an evil threat. I feel like our society is sad because we don’t really accept difference and it’s frowned upon.

Me: Do you feel like your differences have been frowned upon?

Billy: Yeah just because I don’t play sports it doesn’t mean that I’m nicer or meaner. It doesn’t change who I am, theater is just my special hobby. It doesn’t matter what hobbies you do, it just matters what kind of person you are.

Me: Do you like your differences?

Billy: Yeah because it’s what I do. People frown upon the things that I enjoy but people shouldn’t take that away from me.

Me: What keeps you going with your differences?

Billy: My theatre group. When you have a theatre group they make you feel so safe and special and that’s a place where you can just sing your heart out and act your heart out without anyone judging you. The more I’m in theatre, the more I realize that I don’t need anyone to tell me what I’m doing is right or wrong. The more I am in my theatre group the less I’m worried about what other people think of me.

Me: So you found a community in theatre?

Billy: Yeah, because we're all the same, we all work together to create one beautiful play. Theatre is a family of supporters. If you sing badly you support each other on the stage or improvise. That really symbolizes that we're really a family of kindness and we support each other.

Me: What makes you smile?

Billy: If there is a campfire and we are around it and we’re talking and we’re laughing or sharing stories it just makes me feel so safe with people that truly care about me. I was at the cast party for Rent and this family has a fire pit, and all the cast members were there and it just really made me smile. I wanted that moment to last because we were all gathered around this beautiful thing, sharing stories and relaxing. That warm glow of community always touches my heart.