Happy First Monthsary To Me in Steemit ^ ^

It's my first month in Steemit and I'm celebrating it today! When I first joined Steemit, I have no idea how things actually work in here. I still don't have much. I started with a $7 account worth - free from Steemit - Thank you!

My first post generated one upvote - from myself - since I only found out about that upvote button on the bottom right later on. Unlike most people here , I'm not a geek so everything was fuzzy at first. My first post generated no earnings and so I asked - "what happened to blog and you shall earn" campaign that I saw on the Youtube interview of some big whales which may hub was watching and I just overheard of? So what's a minnow like me to do but prowl around bigger fishes. I clicked on what's trending at "hot" to check which genre is blessed with up votes. My brows raised - seriously? I thought ... at the sight of a half naked flesh being sold in the market and exclaimed - "Curses! What the hell, did I get myself into?" - but then - I have learned to give everything the benefit of the doubt and so I kept scrolling down. I found tasty, professional looking and sensible positive posts at the bottom of that "hot and trending" lines of post. Relieved, I went on posting and finally earned my first $0.03. I jumped up and down singing "Breakthrough! Yey!" You might be saying; "Seriously - you call $0.03 a breakthrough?" Yes, I started with zero - counting starts from one doesn't it?

It maybe one small success but it is success be always grateful.

And so I went to bed very happy that night. The next day - I woke up and found it dwindled... another question arise - "Is the hacker still on it?" because I read that there was a hacking incident weeks before I started. Sighs and many sighs from reading whale talks I don't get a grip of and had given me several headaches because even though they are all written in English - for some reasons it was like "speaking in tongues" just in written form. I went on reading whale talks even though I was considerably dyslexic with them. It was pretty scary to ask questions - or write comments because - I became aware of the existence of the flag. I went exploring and exploring some more... and I made so many mistakes from clicking the up vote button because everybody is up voting that ... to following the people I don't really resonate with ... ~ to not posting comments because I fear the flag very much even though I have many questions to ask.
Despite that, I made my biggest breakthrough ever, thanks to them whales.

I tailed the biggest whale who helped me achieve that breakthrough and read not only his posts, comments and replies because I believe he's not a whale if he doesn't know more than I do right? In doing so I found more whales in this ocean. There's two - who... I admire the most. One of them has been supporting starters like I am and if you click who up voted my posts - you would see him there. I tailed him quietly picking his brains through his comments and replies. I finally got to see what's he like on some photos in some Steemit meet ups somewhere and some interview that some Steemians made with him via skype. I admire that whale the most. The other one - I've never seen him up voted me yet. He sponsors one of the challenges I've often joined in here in Steemit. I met him on a comment thread I read about some trashy vote generating digits of $. He stood up for the author and encouraged peace to everybody and yet brought justice back . I like that, I resonate with people who promotes peace - there's too much hate in the world. Let's not join that campaign anymore please. Okay, too much clues. The other whales, I follow them because they sometimes share valuable information in here and if you read their comments and replies you'll learn many things that would help you swim here. That's why I followed them and the many wise dolphins I met along the way. I'm learning from those people a lot and I'm happily writing everyday.

Go with the wise and wise shall ye, be.

I learned that the top 5 people you interact with - you can become. Relationship wise .. honestly ... I choose my friends carefully - after all I'm not rooting for the title Miss Congeniality. But honestly, that's not what I did on my first weeks in Steemit - I just followed people with higher reputation thinking they were the "wise" so they generate these up votes. Later on, animosity started building up in here. Many are complaining about the system, some started luring other people out of Steemit writing dramas and tales suggesting another place because ... I think they know that THE LESSER THE DEMAND, THE MORE SUPPLY THERE IS. If you scan the famous "no - whale talk" post months ago and see how well those posts did back then and realize that the population here was small back then - then you know what on earth I am talking about. I started cleaning my "followed" list, I only want positive content article, one that makes you laugh, learn, live a moment, experience an AHA moment for something new you've learned and most of all one, that leaves a positive impact in life.

Some posts tackled the blind voting the whales are doing according to them and , steem cleaners and other "union - like" group - whatever they call themselves were formed. I used the minnowsunite tag myself because I'm a minnow and because - I also think my posts should be up voted. Don't we all want the same thing to happen to our own post? It's human nature.

However, after scouring posts after posts that used that tag, I realized minnowsunite tag users won't really bring the change we want to happen by using this tag. We will just be feeding a cancer about to grow. We complain that the whales are blind-voting posts ... yet many of us join the ravage there is. The efforts dolphins exert to curate good reads are just getting wasted when we do that. Some complained about how one low quality post soared with up votes yet if you scour the majority of voters on it - it was from the many of us - minnows.

We complain about the site slowly turning into a porn yet ... many of the johns here still up vote any half covered feminine flesh for sale in the market and worse encouraging it throwing them not only attention but comment threads, seemingly oblivious of the fact that we are not all "just adults" here. There are minors who write here in Steemit just so you know. Up voting those posts just encourages them to thrive. Why don't we use the flag and the mute to vanish those distasteful posts instead of abusing it to commit revenge against each other?

When we do this we join the grind. We accept what's going on unconsciously.

And like what children do.. we mirrored the bad examples we see and unconsciously helped in slaughtering the dolphins effort to curate good reads, put out the candle of hope for newly born minnows who need encouraging and encouraged trash domination in this ocean. Is this really what we want? Does it even help promote Steemit or does it actually stain it's reputation. So please, hear my plead fellow fishes in this ocean. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK THAT POST, THINK BEFORE YOU EVEN WRITE. Remember, it would cost too many flags before that whine-filled post gets vanished. Yes, problems exists but whining won't solve it - offer a solution and make all of our lives easier.

Finally, some solutions were born.

Minnows united, steem cleaners and what more - were formed to encourage more writes to write. However, I fear that the use of the tag minnowsunite are starting to get abused, too. I've been following authors who were here for some time now and has managed to become popular and I noticed that ... these days, their posts have become complacent yet still soaring with up votes from bigger and small fishes alike.

See, we may whine and get flagged for doing so and yet - it won't bring no change to the system. We all want good reads only - yet we join up voting bad ones.

Let's turn this around and YES! WE CAN.

Yes, it would be inevitable to become one big popular minnow or a dolphin or a baby whale when you consistently write good reads so how about ~ ... instead of becoming complacent after gaining that popularity... why don't you -

UP YOUR GAME!

It's like trying to lose weight and finally achieving the body you want to have. You don't really go back to binging ... but rather you try to maintain that, right? How about having the same attitude with your writing? Instead of maintaining your post quality - how about improving it?

With popularity comes bigger responsibility. What you do might get mirrored - BE ONE GOOD REFLECTION at least.

So if you started with positive contents and got exposed to the market and saw that people tend to draw themselves into negative contents ... WHY SWITCH just because the market was asking for it? If negative is NOT the message you want to spread here - why write about it just because the market is attracted to it? It's like joining the people who create programs to make the dumb even dumber. Is that really who you want to become as a writer? Is that really the kind of influence you want to be to other people? Is that really the message you want to represent you?

As for the minnowsunite tag, when I first used it, I gathered so many up votes and once again, thank you for solutions like this. Please refrain using it if you know your post isn't adding value to people's lives. Now, say you used it because you exerted efforts in making a good post - you gathered well deserved up votes .. blah~ blah~ blah ~everybody happy. Now, let me ask you this questions.

1. Have you ever bothered checking out who up voted your posts?
2. Have you spare some of your time taking a look whether those people have posts that may be of any value or help to you which you could also up vote?
3. Have you even bothered telling them why you up voted? It actually encourages upping their games.
4. Have you bothered telling them what else could be done better? That helps combat complacency.
5. Did you actually just ping- ponged your up vote?
6. Have you even read the post before you click that up vote?
7. Have you even bothered THANKING those who up voted you?

If you only answered yes to my fourth question then you have actively participated in the grind.

The grind only happens in June in one of the most beautiful place on earth where pilot whales and dolphins pass by and get slaughtered for a winter stock of meat. It only happens once a year and it's a grueling event.

In our case, we commit the grind daily. Unless we help dolphins in curating good reads only we shouldn't expect great changes to take place. There's a great lot of them just waiting to be read . Articles that are spiced up with beautiful self taken pictures, wisdom filled texts and creatively put out good reads. Whining , bashing each other like children, writing with complacency for the sake of being able to publish a post won't help Steemit grow and - it's all just a waste of our precious energy- we could better use in writing good creatives that would last and give long term benefits to others in the future.

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE .

Let your posts speak for the writer you want to see thrive in Steemit. I've already made that choice along time ago and I hope you join me, too in doing so. Thanks to all the Steemians minnows, dolphins and whales alike who helped me swim in this abyss. Perhaps unconsciously, you actually all have created a positive ripple effect ... because like what I wrote before, I'm paying it forward. To those who made the very same decision, I raise my glass to you.

Cheers to a SUCCESSFUL POSITIVE FILLED CONTENT THAT ADDS VALUE TO PEOPLE'S LIVES THRIVING SOON IN STEEMIT!

first three photo credits : IA.. Ereno
all pictures taken with Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 edition smartphone